F*ck Buddies: A Sex and Dating Advice Podcast - FEED DROP: Session 0 - World Primer (Essential Listening)

Episode Date: January 7, 2022

Join the adventure: www.noquestcast.com Follow along to the audio logs of Captain Jonathan Oralias, one of the first humans to travel into the Casa-Mal system after The Descent as he forges a new path for himself and his family while searching for purpose in humanity's new home.  This is essential listening for our first campaign and sets up the core ideas and concepts of our homebrew setting. Additional music credit: "Cinematic Ambient 01" by Zen Man (https://pixabay.com/music/ambient-cinematic-ambient-01-788/) No Quest for the Wicked uses trademarks and/or copyrights owned by Paizo Inc., used under Paizo's Community Use Policy (paizo.com/communityuse). We are expressly prohibited from charging you to use or access this content. No Quest for the Wicked is not published, endorsed, or specifically approved by Paizo. For more information about Paizo Inc. and Paizo products, visit paizo.com.

This thing on? Yeah, red light means... okay. I was convinced by my crew to start this as a means to record our journey, so I guess this is log number one. My name is Jonathan Aurelius. I am the captain of an heiress escape shuttle from the planet Earth. We are fleeing what is widely referred to as the Descent, and it is laughable to call it that. In reality, it was a catastrophe of our own design. We stripped our only home of its natural resources out of greed, arrogance, ignorance, hubris, a combination of them all. I guess at this point, the why doesn't matter. We so irreversibly and enthusiastically fucked our planet to the point where it turned against us. Climate disasters, food and water shortages, wars resulting because of those shortages.

For those of us not hell-bent on self-destruction, the only option was to turn our gaze upwards to the stars, and if you believe in it, the heavens. Our technology at the time wasn't advanced enough for us to get far or even sustain a notable amount of life in space, so we put out a universal SOS. It seemed bleak. For the most part, it was met with silence or apathy, and the few that wished to help weren't able to. It seemed like we were, justifiably, doomed. We were out of time and hope. Then, the Valai showed up, descending from the heavens in their pearlescent ships like benevolent gods. If you know anything about human culture, this was met with mixed reactions. Many of us, the ones who understood the severity of the situation, were eager to see how these new visitors could help.

But there were those who saw them as a threat and opened immediately into conflict. But here's the thing, the Valai let them. They didn't do anything to retaliate against our aggression. They just sat in their ships and waited for us to tire ourselves out like petulant children throwing a tantrum. It was then that we as a collective species knew that they were either here to save us or to finish the job. Thankfully, it was the former. The Valai taught us about hell, everything. The existence of various species and systems and planets, the very fabric and rules of the universe that could be manipulated into what we now know as real, honest to god magic.

And together we formed an escape plan, a series of factories built across the globe known as the Automated Emergency Response Evacuation System, ARIS. They were AI-operated shuttle manufacturers with the sole purpose of pumping out enough ships that could support human life during prolonged space travel. The ingenious thing, and this is all thanks to the Valai, is that they were designed to be modular, so any number of ships could be connected together, allowing whole communities, cities, even countries to leave as a complete unit.

When it became time to begin the evacuation process in earnest, the V'lai wished us luck and left. Now the air shuttles aren't perfect by any means. We've got faulty comms and a grab bag of technical and mechanical troubles daily, but they're sturdy enough for what they're meant to do. And it's... God damn it, now what? This is Captain Jonathan Aurelius aboard the Ares shuttle Gladius, log number 57.

We've been in space for a while now. The Vali implanted coordinates into all of our shuttles to a system called Casamal. We're free to explore, as we wish, but as you can imagine, flying blindly into the vast expanse of space is… daunting, to say the least. A lot of us, that is, humanity, have agreed to rendezvous within Casa Mall and… I don't know, start over? I guess we'll see what's there. The Vali also gave us something of a primer for the system, a brief rundown of the planets from the molten churlus all the way to the frozen knee. The next couple months are going to be challenging.

And the decisions we make now are really going to shape what life means to us. I'm not sure how I got elected captain way back when, but these people depend on me now. And that scares me more than staring out into the black void that stretches infinitely in every direction. Oh, on a personal note, Sasha is pregnant. We're gonna have a space baby. This is Captain Jonathan Aurelius of the Gladius log number 140. We've arrived in Casamall and have rendezvoused with some of the Gladius Log number 140. We've arrived in Casamall, and have rendezvoused with some of the other shuttles. In fact, we've started using the ship's modular nature to

lock our ships together, kind of creating a whole new community. I'd almost forgotten what it's like to see a stranger or walk a distance longer than the length of the Gladius. I will say, though, as grateful as we all are, no one more so than I, of the Valais Intelligence and Aid, their... aesthetic choices need work.

Our ships are now, and I'll be honest, a hideous mess. We're essentially just a large, unsightly box floating through space. Most of us have jokingly started referring to our new little community as the Cube. We've put out a call to other Ares shuttles inviting them to come and join our exciting space box and I've already heard from a number of captains on their way. Admittedly it's not much but this could work. Also this is more a reminder for myself but I've got to ask the tech guys to check out the intercoms. I keep hearing faint chatter at night. One of the wires must have gotten fried and I'm picking up other rooms. Whatever it is, it's driving me nuts.

Hold on, hold on. That's better. This is Captain Jonathan Aurelius of the Gladius Log 217. It's been wild. I know I'm not doing these as much as I used to, but the cube is growing every day. Even some of the other races have visited. Kasatha, Shirin, even a few Vesk. We're setting up a commission to figure out where we stand within the system, our

political structure, etc. This has all gotten very serious very fast, but I'll be damned if it hasn't started feeling like home. Someone set up a steakhouse here after setting up a deal with some Yosuke hunters. Can you believe that? I have no idea what we're eating, and it's sure as shit not beef, but if I'm being honest, I don't care. It's a million times better than our dense nutrient bricks the Ares shuttles fabricate for us. Also, the intercom issue has persisted. If anything, it's gotten worse since we've started adding more Ares shuttles to the cube.

My guess is the more ships we add, the more interference we're going to get. Our tech guys have looked, but can't seem to find the problem. So we might just have to rework the entire communication system from the ground up if we keep growing at the rate that we are. I should probably get back to... Oh, okay. We had our baby. Sasha's doing great, thanks to the incredible docs on board. Baby is doing great. So the cube is celebrating our first space baby. Little Astrid, space baby extraordinaire.

Okay, okay, okay. I'm coming, I'm coming. The Gladius Log 280. Well, we did it. After forming the administration aboard the Cube, we made our case to the Federation of Councils, and we are officially members, alongside almost every other planet in the system. We'll be appointing our representative to the Council within the next coming weeks,

and I know my name is going to come up, Which is why I will be departing the queue. That's not the full reason, but it's one of them. The whole bureaucracy stuff. It's not for me. It isn't me. I appreciate that people have looked to me for guidance, and that they've held my opinion in such high regard, but I need to step back from all this. So I've gathered a small crew, engineers, soldiers, doctors, scientists. Not everyone who left Earth joined the cube, and for all intents and purposes, we're the new kid on the block. Sure, we're in the FOC now, but we've got a lot to prove. We've got a lot of people out there that could use a hand. So the plan is to travel around, visiting the settlements we've managed to set up throughout

Castle Mall, and assist in whatever way we can. Setting up farm plots, clearing out troublesome pests, delivering medical supplies, securing trade routes, whatever we can do. And while we're there we'll offer our services to the locals as well. A goodwill ambassador program if you will. That's how I'm going to help. Not by sitting behind some desk in the admin on the cube. Out there in the void that used to scare the shit out of me.

Now it's calling my name, and I'm eager to answer. This is Captain Jonathan Aurelius of the Gladius Log 344. I guess it was only a matter of time. God. Damn, it's cold. We've had our first altercation with the Sunonon Empire. We had plenty of warning from the Vali and the rest of the Federation that they were bad news. We should have listened.

We were doing a training run for a colony on Gale. And I guess something was wrong with our landing permits because they damn near blew us out of orbit. We were lucky enough to make a jump to Nii, so now we're stuck here freezing our asses off, waiting for another Nomad group to help with repairs. I swear to god, if I ever meet one of those Imperial assholes at a bar, I'm breaking their nose. I never thought I'd miss the hum of the busted intercoms on the cube, but it's almost too quiet out here. Sasha, Astrid, I miss you. I'll be home soon. This is Captain Jonathan Aurelius of the Gladius Log 500.

Sorry, let me restate. This is Captain Jonathan Aurelius of the Gladius Designation Tavern. That's right. The Federation has awarded our little merry band of nomads with our own official designation and even developed an exclusive interface to help with our mission. The Transvocational Request Node. I can't even begin to understand the technical specs of it all, but now, anytime we dock in an FOC settlement, we get a list of contracts uploaded directly to our ship. We can pick and choose our work, freelance out the ones we don't want. This is the dream. We're making credits, hand over fist, we're helping people, and now I know it's hypocritical

for me to be excited about this, but I'm the founding father of the Tavern Oversight Guild. Not bad for the first generation of humans in space if I do say so myself. I know I've gotten bad at keeping up with these, and again I promise I will keep doing them, but between all this tavern business and Astrid not sleeping at all, it's been a lot to juggle. This is Captain Jonathan Aurelius of the Gladius Designation Tavern. Log 2027. When people ask me why I first set out on my altruistic jaunt through the system, I

often tell them it was because space called out to me. That there was an innate need to explore, to help, to make a difference. I would say that for the drama. But now, now there's some truth to it. There is something out there calling to me, and I know what you're thinking, but I've talked to everyone, from the Shaman Angeo to the Shrinks of Therrum. There's nothing wrong with me, and I know that because Astrid can hear it too. For the longest time, I thought there was something wrong with the intercoms, but it's

not them. It is something reaching out somehow, trying to talk to me, trying to talk to us. When she was little, she would talk about the whispers, and we all thought it was just the imagination of a kid growing up in a place like this, but she's 16 now. God, where'd the time go? She still hears them, and for me, it's like someone's thrown a harpoon through my chest and is pulling me. I need to follow this thread. Before we left Earth, we had no idea that any of this was out here. That any of these things that we've seen were even possible. How can we now sit here and think that we've seen it all?

That there isn't more out there to be found that needs to be found? Sasha won't be happy. But Astrid will understand, and I hope that she'll be able to explain to her mother why I had to do this. I think back to the descent, and I wish I could go back, knowing what I know now, and ask the fly all the questions I have about everything. Where did they go? Did they hear the call too? I guess I'll see when I get there. Kjell Kjell To be continued... Thank you. Thank you.