From publisher blurb:
I looked up in alarm as a particularly loud thunderclap went off overhead. Vajra mouthed a silent prayer as she eyed the boiling blackness overhead.
“The gods are angry today,” she said, almost in awe.
The sky was certainly angry. The black rainclouds took on a greenish cast off to the west. The rain itself was coming down in sheets. The wind was gusting to worrisome levels. And the lightning…I knew we couldn’t stay exposed like this.
I wished we could’ve waited this storm out in the ATV, but The Colonel wasn’t about to let our target get away after coming so close. Not to mention the fifty thousand creds we’d get for catching him.
The rain suddenly stopped, as though Vajra’s gods had decided to flip the “off” switch. It was then that we both heard a loud, rushing sound. I looked westward, toward the noise. A few kilometers away, a spinning, grayish-white finger of cloud was reaching toward the ground below. Rope-thin at first, it gained girth as it touched down and announced its presence with a roar of wind and a veil of black dust.
Vajra spat a barbarian profanity upon seeing the tornado and looked around frantically for cover. I did the same, suddenly deciding the mission — and the money — wasn’t that important after all.
Modeling weather in a roleplaying game is often a hit-or-miss proposition. There are random tables, published and online, that can help, but the results can sometimes be unrealistic, even silly. Add to that the fact that meteorological processes can be almost impossibly complex, and it’s no wonder many Referees simply don’t bother introducing weather into their games, or if they do, they relegate it to the background. But the addition of inclement or violent weather can add more to the adventure than mere background or window-dressing, add tension and spice to the action, serve as an additional complication for the PCs, and add color to an alien environment.
This supplement for Cepheus Engine (CE) and the Original Science Fiction Roleplaying Game (OSFRPG) gives the Referee the tools to emulate weather across an entire world – any world. Using a simple die mechanic and set of easily-applied modifiers, the Referee can quickly impose all sorts of weather effects, depending on the planet. The rules can even help model such local disturbances as insect swarms and troop movements.
Weather. The forecast is for fun, with widespread action.