Imagine a semi-controlled landing. The 16km biggie comes down onto a desert world, never to rise again. Several thousand kroot, hounds, and krootox survive this, and spread out around to colonize the planet. Human slaves, a few tau advisors, and misc other aliens on board were in the mix. This was 80 years ago. The sphere will never fly again, and eventually Hrud showed up as traders , tinkers and scavengers, and have a trading post nearby. The planet is a desert, but habitable.

Some of the flavor text says that Kroot will plant spheres where they want to colonize. But that was not the plan here, and the core structure of this monstrosity was damaged, and the warp-drive melted into the bedrock before cooling. Now 120 megatonnes of scrap metal (or apartment blocks, depending on your view) lay in the desert. With a town sprung up around.

Then the RT party shows up.

Thoughts? Questions ? Adventure ideas ?

Not the colony ship I bet they were planning, but...

Quandary: Would there even be Tau on the sphere? Assuming you are in the Expanse, and not doing some RT in the Jericho Reach, I'm not sure the Tau officially know about the Koronus Expanse, or the Kroot Warspheres. If the Tau knew that the Kroot had working warp drives, and battleship-class vessels, they might have working warp drives, now, rather than their puddle-jumper plan that keeps them safe, but their expansion slow, and bigger, nastier ships to fight with. I know that certain things the Kroot do in the Expanse are without the Taus' knowledge, and I suppose the ENTIRE race doesn't belong to the Tau (maybe these Kroot could've crashed before their people even allied with the Tau?), but it would seem weird for the Tau not to know about these two things, or already be in the Koronus Expanse, if they did. Again, my grasp on the totality of the fluff there is shaky, so I'm only inquiring. These little gaps are among the BS reasons I had the Eldar start bringing some, since the Eldar can control the speed at which the Tau show up, and the Tau are hard-pressed to wrest the ability away, and take the Eldar's bargaining position down.

It's mentioned a few times in background that the Kroot take up mercenary work outside of Tau space and keep it quiet. They're only supposed to work for the Tau Empire but won't pass up opportunities to gather more genetic variety. So I doubt there would be Tau on board.

The idea has potential. The scrap alone would be worth something, but a swathe of stranded kroot with all their personal tech would be a tempting resource.

And if you want just a smidge more cheese, because I know I'm a fan, if those Tau were Coldfire Kindred, they might even have some of that Tau tech with them, though it might be a little dilapidated, by this point, depending on how long they have been marooned. Scrap parts and available mercs? Oh yeah, I can see that, but possibly a few bits of cool Tau tech, WITHOUT having to put up with the Tau, to get it? Yes please. Just a thought; I'm good for the "just that little bit now unnecessary" ones.

Well whatever on the Tau. that was not the main issue of this thread. any Tau or other Xenos would be 1% or less.

The planet in question is not in Koronus expanse.

I was looking for ideas on what the thousands of Kroot, Knarlocs, hounds , etc would do let run loose on a planet.

Presumably they'd do what they can to consume enough of the native wildlife to adapt more completely to their new environment.

Not sure that 80 years is enough time to have created a new bloodline but you might get some interesting changes in the shorter lived species like the kroothounds.

Perhaps something akin to a camel that can be ridden but still has a nasty bite.

I imagine the Knarlocs and other large creatures might die out in a low resource environment so they'd potentially be replaced by something else in the workforce.

Well whatever on the Tau. that was not the main issue of this thread. any Tau or other Xenos would be 1% or less.

The planet in question is not in Koronus expanse.

Are there any novels or movies where a city springs up around a downed megaship?

I was looking for ideas on what the thousands of Kroot, Knarlocs, hounds , etc would do let run loose on a planet.

Ever heard of Metamorphosis Alpha?

Well whatever on the Tau. that was not the main issue of this thread. any Tau or other Xenos would be 1% or less.

The planet in question is not in Koronus expanse.

Are there any novels or movies where a city springs up around a downed megaship?

I was looking for ideas on what the thousands of Kroot, Knarlocs, hounds , etc would do let run loose on a planet.

Ever heard of Metamorphosis Alpha?

Yes, but isn't that when they don't know they are on a ship.

D&D had a set about "Tales of the comet" about an advanced race crashing to planetside

well the players rushed ahead.

they are at "Broken Shell" which is what the Kroot call the big pile.

it is a feudal city somewhere between casablanca and mos eisley

in a ragged ring around the hull, a varied city has sprung up in the

crevasses around the wreck site.

devices inside the hull still work to make food blocks and extract water.

other needs must be scavenged, and any organic waste is recycled back into the system.

each octant of the hull has a ruler, and then each octant of the city around has a sheriff. (all kroot)

even though this is nominally a Tau planet, they do not care about the day to day details

of this wreck. it is run by the descendants of the originals, who have adapted to this desert world.

the tau only care about the military and support sites, nowhere near here.

the one tau concern is they occasionally show up to recruit more kroot soldiers, of which plenty are bred here,

and due to the boring nature of the place, the quota is always met.

citizenry is 80% kroot, 5% allied races (vespid, nicassar, demiurge, tarellian, slyth, few tau, etc)

and 10% human (mixed racially, scum, gue-vesa, mutants, and local brigands.)

the last 5% is random dregs of the galaxy: hrud, gretchin, one-off species,

plus whatever random thing fall out of my miniatures box.)

so the escaped imperial prisoners have simply disguised themselves as human brigands and blended right it.

so far they've run into:

a concierge type of kroot who helps them find jobs, trades, lodgings.

a Kroot Warlord who demands their ad-mechs fix his healing machine

so his grandfather can live one more season.

a mute but religious xeno-girl who was trying to find her voice.

an alchemist who offered some of the NPCs a job

a food vendor whose wares had mutated into a giant blood-sucking parasite

gang-bangers from the human dregs who are looking for easy marks.

http://i.imgur.com/QtMym97.jpg

also trading at the city, but nomadically they do not stay...

True native of the planet are primitives, one meter tall,

but have access to tech armor and tech-halberds they do not understand.

the three major native life forms are a cattle-type, a major predator,

and a trapping type fauna. (details : this is the planet )

with their tech the little aliens can manage the huge beasts.

the leather of the beasts is so metal-rich it acts as a faraday type shielding.

Well whatever on the Tau. that was not the main issue of this thread. any Tau or other Xenos would be 1% or less.

The planet in question is not in Koronus expanse.

Are there any novels or movies where a city springs up around a downed megaship?

I was looking for ideas on what the thousands of Kroot, Knarlocs, hounds , etc would do let run loose on a planet.

I've done a thing like that before actually - but with an Imperial Ship full of boarding Kroot crashing unto an inhospitable planet with a native species in full Steampunk development. I dunno if you're still interested, but my inspiration was District 9 and that planet from Shield of Baal that had a crashed ship on it.

the map of said mostrosity: http://imgur.com/rtXSBpQ

the funny part of this: the Kroot mis-adventure was 7 months ago (real time, 2+ years ago game time)

so the PCs escaped the Tau/Kroot prison, and finally now going back to that system for revenge and reclamation.

so i had to do a little "while you away" adjudicating, and decide what if anything had changed politically while they were gone.