Kobolds In Space! is a game where players become kobolds who are tasked with a mission that requires space travel. What follows is a story version of one of the beta tests of Kobolds In Space!
Our spherical ship is called The Green Moon. It heavily armored, but very slow. The AI on our ship, SNIV 3000, is extremely annoying. Our mission is to seek out a friendly asteroid and mine it. Maybe. Most of us weren’t really paying attention.
Slow space travel made the annoying AI especially grating.
“Do you have a mute button?”, Ryze asks SNIV 3000.
“Yes, I can mute any kobold you choose.”
Bau grunts in annoyance. I glare at SNIV 3000, and Ryze keeps arguing with it. Taba attempts to cast “earmuffs” but it didn’t work, so they cast a lightning spell on the AI. That sort of worked. SNIV 3000 shut up for a while, but made our ship even slower in retaliation.
Three and a half months later, we arrive at the asteroid.
SNIV 3000 announced that it scanned the asteroid for irregularities. The asteroid is spherical, and is not organic in nature. It is barren, except for a pink two-story structure with windows and dull yellow shutters. Out front is a rectangle of something green, and a mailbox.
All of us suit up in red shirts that provide us with a bubble of air that lasts an hour. To our delight, we cannot hear SNIV 3000 while outside of the ship!
After finding boxes in the mailbox, from curiously named companies, we walk to the house. The mat says “Go Away!”. I flip it over. The other side says, “I said go away!” Suddenly, I fall through a trap door, but manage not to get impaled on the spikes below me. The gravity of this asteroid enables me to jump out of the trap, with little damage.
Ryze wants to go back to the ship to make Marmite and oatmeal cookies for whoever lives in the house. We collectively cringe, remembering the peanut butter and sardine sandwich Ryze once made.
We move to a window, which Bao knocks on. The shutters slam open, and a skeletal face appears. He is wearing a black cloak and a hood. “Get off my lawn!”, the skeleton mentally yells at us.
“What’s a lawn?”, Bao asks. After a brief discussion, we decide that “Lawn” must be the name of the asteroid.
Suddenly, a swarm of walkers – complete with tennis balls on their ends – falls from the sky. We dash around, trying to avoid getting beaned with a bunch of assistive devices. Taba casts shield, which sort of worked. Bao smartly hid under the eaves of the house. Ryze dodges, and I fail to move out of the way. Taba heals me with what she called “pre-necromancy”.
Bao attempts diplomacy. She explains to the skeleton that we are kobolds, who live in caves, and have never seen a lawn before.We get off the skeleton’s lawn.
Bao promises that, if he lets us live here, we won’t come onto his lawn or knock on his windows. Eventually, she convinces the skeleton that we could give him our AI – which is very advanced, in exchange for letting us live on the asteroid. The skeleton agrees to go with us to our ship to see the AI.
Unfortunately, the AI quickly caught on to our plan. SNIV 3000 is offended that we would sell it. Bao explained, “We aren’t selling you. You are becoming an ambassador of the kobold empire.”
SNIV 3000 disables our red shirt space suits and opens the airlock. We tumble towards the asteroid, as our ship attempts to take off. In a panic, each of us tries anything we can think of to get back aboard the ship before we die from lack of air. Nothing seems to work.
And then, I remember how I got out of the spike trap. “We have to jump!”, I yell. It works better than expected, and the skeleton helps by pulling in those who missed the door.
The skeleton and SNIV 3000 get into an argument about whether or not the AI is an appliance. This causes the skeleton to lose all interest in the AI. We are stuck with SNIV 3000.
Bao again evokes diplomacy. “How about this? If you let us live on the asteroid, we can mow your lawn for you and bring in your mail.” The skeleton considers this. We end up making an agreement to mow his lawn once a week – twice a week if it rains.
Having long forgotten what we were supposed to do after reaching the asteroid, we consider our mission to be a success!