Casting Shadows

This week’s seed is for Leagues of Adventure, and is put together primarily for social combat, but has plenty of hooks for the more physical characters to get in on things as well.

The seed
The characters come to learn of a new discovery which those in the know believe will revolutionize the transportation industry. Storm clouds gather as groups form and realign in order to exploit the discovery for their own interests.

Planting the seed
This seed can be run as a one-off, but will allow greater opportunities if allowed to develop into an arc of some length. Characters might be approached as independent researchers, experts in the field of aviation or nautical engineering, investors, journalists, peers, friends, or other personal or professional avenues.

The Details

 Temirlan Akzhol Pinchot-VandeBuren, as global a citizen as one could possibly fathom, has recently announced through very proper channels the discovery of a solid substance, which when heated marginally, and kept at a stable, but relatively low temperature, increases predictably and consistently in size while retaining its relative shape. Moreover, this material, once at the proper temperature is rendered as light as air. The expected ramifications for air and seaborne buoyancy have already set investors, saboteurs, spies, and the merely greedy into a flurry of activity.

If rumour is to be believed, a small consortium of inventors have produced a prototype airship patterned along the lines of a traditional airship, but due to its unique properties needs a fraction of the hydrogen or helium a similarly sized traditional craft would, with greatly increased durability, rigidity, and cargo space. Speculation has extrapolated this to cargo ship hulls as well, but pundits in and out of the scientific community have already begun to dismiss the possibilities for warships as the material – as yet unnamed – lacks the resilience of steel.

What is going on

This scenario presents problems on several levels:

• Concerned parties may seek to monopolize the supply and production of the material for their own interests.
• Agents of various foreign powers will seek to steal or deny this development to all who have it.
• Investors will wheel and deal to increase their shares while lessening others’
• Families will leverage themselves far into the red to seek to become a part of the ‘next big thing.’
• No proof of this discovery has yet been produced.
• Powers conspire to prevent or discredit the discovery – if it is indeed real.
• If it is real, no one yet knows its production costs relative to what it might replace, or even how much could be produced at what rate.
• The pedigree of the invention may not be as clear-cut as people believe, and in fact may have been stolen.
• The actual inventor if such there be, may not be at all interested in seeing their creation enter the eyes of the world with someone else’s name attached to it.

Enjoy~

Related articles

• Saturday Seed ~ 107 (Leagues of Adventure) (runeslinger.wordpress.com)
• Saturday Seed ~ 103 (Leagues of Adventure) (runeslinger.wordpress.com)
• Review: Leagues of Adventure (runeslinger.wordpress.com)