[Convergence 03.01] Intercept

License Level 3 ticks over. I swap my Metalmark licensing into the Amber Phantom variant and pick up the first level of Swallowtail.

Downtimes:

Task Group Brigand benefits from ongoing training with me. 18 on the downtime roll, gaining +2 Efficiency. They’re now at Efficiency +4, Influence +1.

For downtime, I invest further into TG Brigand and recruit a flight crew, going to Efficiency +4, Influence +3, and access to the transport craft as an additional reserve.

Ilias has been awarded the liturgical paracode to interface with the Sisyphus NHP. It and Janus are getting along disturbingly well.

Ilias continues working on disentangling Umbra. He’s instantiated Umbra Prime as distinct from Umbra Source.

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[Convergence 02.02] Gatekeepers

Still in combat, and my notes always break down when we’re fighting.

Picking up mid-fight – we’ve found a net trace on Boomer, who’s in the same state as Umbra, on the far side of Tu’rosa at the site of a pre-Union battle. Hard contact as we enter the active ruins.

Enemy flier frame is down. Still dealing with a close-range melee fighter, invisible, that’s monowhipping Echo, and a long-range heavy artillery frame.

Task Group Brigand reports a whale’s-brain-sized organic mass in the downed flier. They are inclined to purify it with fire. I am inclined to agree.

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[Convergence 02.01] Ozymandias

We level up to LL2. I grab a second level of Metalmark; NLP acquires his second level of Pegasus.

Another tactical session with minimal investigation (once we wrapped up our downtimes) or RP.

Rewards and downtime:

Each of us gains a connection to Gold’s scavenger crew:

  • can keep as a contact
  • can burn it for a favor

The mechs we grounded in this reality after taking them down are now a reserve – potential research, etc.

I blow my roll for organization stability. We choose aggressive action. Envoy is interested in Task Group Brigand, but that would give him an in with us. We’re required to deploy them on the next op.

Ilias continues his work on the Umbra shard/casket we’ve acquired. I support (just talk to her… she’s a person, let’s treat her like one).

Echo makes the decoupling roll. The needles that were stuck into Umbra’s mind are drawn out so that just the tips are touching. It’s apparent that whatever or whoever forced this integration did not care about the trauma inflicted on the NHP or the uploaded remnants of Umbra. We get 1 tick on a 4-segment clock for the full decoupling.

I get us printer time for stealth hardsuits for TF Brigand.

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[Convergence 01.02] Grenade Distribution System

Combat session, minimal notes. License Level 1.

On Kharvek, imminent contact as we break off conversation with the NHP node we discovered…

A gateway that looks identical to the one at the printer has materialized in the mine pit. Four mechs (so far) have deployed. One of the shooter-variants, one of the hammer-variants scaled up to Size 2, advanced version of the Axman, and the one from the spaceport that tried to hack Echo. These look more pristine and freshly-printed than what we’ve seen before.

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[Convergence 01.01] Gold, Miner

I’ve been failing to post session notes because of a lack of executive function and energy to clean them up. Paladin and NLP recently reminded me that not everything I put on the blog needs to be up to my professional standards. I’m not entirely in agreement, but this has been hanging over me, so here you are.

UIB mission tasking – inactive mining complex on Kharvek, tied to former system-wide empire. May contain data archive/information cache.

Threat advisory: other imperial facility recoveries have involved automated defenses and paracausal technologies.

Discussion of mission priority. We’re taking the UIB op. Ambassador Storch also wants to run the investigation at Stockland Station. He’s willing to backburner it until we’re available. We decide to put watchers on Stockland to passively gather intel until we can get there. Task Force Brigand is assigned to watch their backs and, if needed, kinetically extract them.

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Human Terrain II

With focus about to return to the expedition team as it nears Krakow, I threw together a relationship map for the factions and actors described in the Broadstreet Dossier. Right-click and select “open image in new tab” to slightly embiggen.

It may also be worth reviewing the dossier itself…

The_Broadstreet_DossierDownload

And finally, here’s a sync table of the two groups’ timelines since the expedition departed Poninka.

Breakout (26-27 October 2000)

It’s a cold late-autumn night in Ponikla. Snow is still on the ground from the season’s first heavy snowfall, but about a quarter of the village is gathered around two oil drum fires outside the radio studio, where Alexei is hosting the first Minka’s Home Remedies Hour.

In the machine shed that’s become the village’s armory, Arkadi is rebuilding a carburetor for alcohol fuel while he covers radio watch. His flow state is interrupted by, “Ponikla, Ponikla, this is Starosa House, come in.“

Arkadi sighs at the complete lack of communications security and picks up the microphone. “Starosa, Ponikla, go ahead.”

“We’ve had an attack here,” the caller from the North Farms reports. “We have four injured, one critical. Two enemies killed, the rest driven off. Is the d– is the nurse available?“

At least they remembered not to refer to Red as an actual physician on an open channel. “Starosa, stand by.” Arkadi steps to the door and whistles for one of the railyard teenagers. “Pawel! Go get Leks and Red.” No further explanation is needed. Both men will know that if they’re needed at the radio, there’s a problem somewhere.

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Con Report: CharCon 2026

Back to Charleston, WV for another iteration of a surprisingly good pocket-sized gaming con. I first attended with Tracker7 when he and I were rooming together in Lexington, half a lifetime ago – no con report for that trip. More recently, I’ve attended – and reported on – the 2024 and 2025 instances. Even better, it’s one of the few reliable times I get to see Tracker7 these days, and it’s becoming something of a summer reunion con for the Louisville Gaming Mafia.

The TL;DR is that the CharCon organizers continue to pack a shocking amount of gaming into a space whose size and geometry both should be more limiting. I have a few issues with various aspects of the con, but these are noteworthy for their low magnitude.

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June 2000 Briefing Map

A user under the handle of Ryan Pendergast recently posted this to the Juhlin forum. It’s too good not to preserve and repost. This is a briefing map for the summer 2000 NATO offensive in the first edition Twilight: 2000 timeline. It really illustrates how far out on a limb 5th Infantry Division was even before they ran into the Soviet counterattack.

Wolves Without Borders

With Leks having turned a corner in his journey into the Bracia Wilków brotherhood, it’s a good time to roll up some of the story and mechanical considerations that have gone into this arc (and that have informed the on-screen appearances of Filip and his pack throughout the campaign).

First things first: I don’t know if the Venn diagram of Steelshod fandom and this campaign encompasses anyone but me. Even if no one else is positioned to catch this, though, I’d be remiss and unethical if I didn’t acknowledge the massive influence of /u/MostlyReadRarelyPost’s epic campaign log and, more specifically, his setting’s Ulfskennar. My vision for the Bracia Wilków has always hinged on that work. Not incidentally, if any of my three loyal readers are looking for a deep, sweeping fantasy campaign log into which to delve, just… go to /r/MostlyWrites and start chewing. I hope your chair is comfortable.

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