Starfarer

Hi-tech sci-fi hack of Wayfarer by Chaoclypse. 

Updated 8pg zine release on itch with lots of Chaoclypse art!

Character Creation 

Roll 2d6 down the line for the four Stats: Strength (STR), Speed (SPD), Intellect (INT), Privilege (PRV).

HP is average of STR and PRV, rounded down.

Every character starts at Level 0.

Privilege Bonus

Characters with a PRV score of 11+ receive material bonuses in a personal estate on their homeworld OR an 8-person starship, and Sector-wide corporate contacts OR connections to government officials.

Skills 

Allocate 5 rolls between the Regular, Special, Streetrat, Landlord, or Institutional Skill tables to determine Skills. For example, a player can roll 3 times on Common Skills and twice on Specialized.

For each skill, allocate an inventory item appropriate to said skill.

After the first 5 Skills, players may choose to make a Death Save to survive another 5 years of life and gain a new Skill. 

Common Skills

1. Melee Combat (Specify weapon)
2. Ranged Combat (Specify weapon)
3. Survival (Specify Worlds or Void)
4. Piloting (Specify vehicle type)
5. Tech Repairs
6. Computing

Specialized Skills

1. Medical
2. Admin
3. Cultural Studies
4. Pharmacology
5. Astrobiology
6. Engineering

Streetrat Skills (Must have PRV 6-)

1. Fraud
2. Extortion
3. Streetwise OR Cultural Studies
4. Pharmacology
5. Piloting (Specify planet-based vehicle)
6. Tech Repairs OR Computing

Landlord Skills (Must have a PRV 8+)

1. Fraud
2. Bribery
3. Sector Law OR Admin
4. Pharmacology
5. Piloting (Specify vehicle type)
6. Engineering OR Computing

Institutional Skills (Must have INT 8+ or PRV 8+)

1. Medical
2. Sector Law
3. Astrobiology
4. Cybernetics
5. Superintelligences
6. Genemodding

Encumbrance

Inventories are slot based. Characters have an encumbrance maximum that is equal to their current STR+2.

Checks

To attempt an action where success is uncertain, roll 8+ on 2d6 to succeed.

If the task is easy, and you still feel it necessitates a Check, roll 6+.

If the difficulty is unclear, roll 2d6 for the target number. Any result below 6 is trivial and does not require a check. Even most easy tasks do not require a Check.

Dice Modifiers

Some conditions may modify the Check, called a Dice Modifier, or DM. This boon or bane applies to the 2d6 result.

• If a Stat applies to a the Check: 
• Stats of 6- grant -2 DM 
• Stats of 10+ grant +2 DM 
• If Skill applies to the Check: Add the Skill bonus. 
• If lacking a Skill required for the Check, -4 DM.

Stat Checks

If a singular Stat is all that matters, roll 2d6 under or equal to the stat to succeed.

World

Base chance of encounter/patron/rumor: 2-in-6 

If actively searching (takes time): 4-in-6

Reaction rolls

Roll reactions when a character’s reaction to the party is unclear. This also works for unclear situations.

2d6	Reaction
5-	Negative
6-8	Neutral
9+	Positive

Combat

Combat uses Checks as per normal. Each combat round, characters may move between range bands, and perform an attack.

To hit	2d6
No Armor	6+
Modest Armor	8+
Full Armor	10+

Slow targets gain +2 DM to hit; fast targets gain -2 DM.

Range Bands	Effective Weapons
Close	Melee
Medium	Throwable + Ranged
Far	Ranged
Distant	Ranged, -2 DM

Attempting to flee uses a combat round. Make a check with a +2 DM if Distant, and -2 DM if Close.

Damage

If less-than-lethal, take d3 damage. If it could kill a person, d6 damage. If it could blow a hole in a wall, 2d6 damage. If it could destroy an engine block, 4d6 damage.

Surprise

For random encounters, 2-in-6 chance of surprise for both sides. Roll d6 for distance, with -1 DM for each side that’s surprised:

d6	Distance
1-	Close
2-3	Medium
4-5	Far
6+	Distant

Death Saves

At 0 HP, enemies are killed (or unconscious), but player characters may make a Death Save, and roll 2d6 under SPD.

If failed, the character dies. The higher the difference, the more gruesome the death. A natural 12 is always a horrendous sight to behold.

On success, set HP to 0. Roll d6, with a +1 DM for every death save made that session.

d6	Death Save Effect
1	Gain d3+1 HP, and immediately perform a free action.
2	Gain d3 HP. Downed.
3	Unconscious.
4	Unconscious. Lose 1 point in a narratively appropriate Stat.
5	Unconscious. Scarred: Lose d3 points in a narratively appropriate Stat.
6	Unconscious. Bleeding out. Dead in 2d6 rounds without Medical intervention.
7+	Die on your own terms: Do one last action with +4 DM.

If any Stat drops to 0, the character dies.

Unconsciousness normally lasts 10 minutes, usually rendering the character useless for the rest of the fight.

Advancement

Award XP at the end of each session. If: 

• a character took a significant risk, earn 1 XP. 
• a character was in immense or constant risk, earn 2 XP.

The character needs XP equal to the level they are trying to reach, cumulatively. Player characters start at Level 0.

Level	XP required
1	1 XP
2	3 XP
3	6 XP
4	10 XP
5	15 XP

etc.

Level Bonus

Each level, do the following: 

• Add +d3 to maximum HP 
• +1 to a chosen Skill, up to a max of 3 
• Note: This must be a skill used in a risky situation during this advancement stage
• To increase skills beyond 3, one must seek out willing masters and prove their worth or parley with them.

To learn a new Skill, one must find a teacher with at least 3+ in the Skill, and a month of dedicated training time. This achieves a Skill of 0, preventing the -4 DM for lack of specialized skills.

Re: Second Wave Solarpunk

This post was originally a Discord reply to the Planets & Monsters post, Second Wave Solarpunk. and then I realized thanks to Seraphina's Short Blog Manifesto that I should just post this on my own, very infrequently used blog.

Planets & Monsters writes:

[Solarpunk] slaps trees on skyscrapers instead of wondering how society might have to change to get into ecological balance. It isn't looking to imagine new ways of living outside the capitalist mode of production. 

Bingo. The major failure of solarpunk fiction (and the greater aesthetic form), is in failing to present new, anticapitalist economic pathways, and instead buying wholeheartedly into the messianic techbro mindset that "tech will save us," which it cannot. Only we as people can help each other. We might use tech to assist, but it must be a human endeavor.

Science fiction that imagines a better future doesn't imagine a world without conflict, it imagines what new conflicts will be there, or what conflicts that exist today have taken new form in the future.  

What Planet & Monsters writes about here is the basis for the critical utopia genre, as Tom Moylan calls it in his seminal work Demand the Impossible (1986). 

Planet & Monsters is not looking for Second Wave Solarpunk, but for the critical utopia. A genre that takes in the true, face value of the challenges of modern and future civilization and presents a better way of life in the path forward. It's hard, many failures occur along the way, and life is not the idyllic perfect society, but one of struggle and constant fighting for a better life. Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed and especially Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy are perfect examples of this genre.

Kim Stanely Robinson (KSR) has based his whole writing career on writing utopian fiction, and I think his books are more "solarpunk" than anything else lauded as such. I still find it striking how the dichotomy of futures between The Gold Coast and Pacific Edge reflects our modern times, and these were written in the 80s. The latter is a major solarpunk book, and I don't think I've ever met anyone who has actually read it (but I haven't been asking around for the past few years either, granted).

KSR collected an anthology that hits at the utopian heart of that solarpunk's arrow missed, Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias. I grabbed this from my university library in 2010, and I'm not sure it's widely available. This book was how I discovered Terry Bisson & Gene Wolfe. I read it shortly after reading Le Guin's Planets of Exile & Illusion for the first time.

Anywho, great post from Planets & Monsters that let me relive my uni days of studying utopianism. 

Decagone Driven to the Maw

I'm running a Classic Traveller campaign right now, and have a medieval tech level planet named Lorien.

The ruler of the planet is a religious dictator, Uzuale. Pontiff Uzuale de Lorien.

My brain went: "Hrm, de Lorien. Delorean. I need a medieval sci-fi time travel adventure."

Not without grand surprise, that subgenre suffers a bit of a dearth in adventures. But the characters, one of whom is a Duke, got invited to the Pontiff's banquet, so I had to get this one in. I adore the Mothership adventure Decagone, by my pal WacoMatrixo. I just needed a D&D-like banquet adventure to run, and the OSR module that popped into my mind was Brad Kerr's Demon Driven to the Maw. 

Now kiss

So you have the "Why?" Now the "How?"

This next bit contains massive spoilers for both modules. Don't read if you want to play either module.

Demon Driven to the Maw is set in a Scottish castle overrun by beautiful, secretly-hooved vampires called Baobhan Sith who have opened a gate to hell so the Devil himself can attend their party where they intend to eat and kill all the villagers for Satan's amusement.

Decagone is a time loop module set on an ocean-floor research base where the crew members are living the same 10 minutes over and over until they stop the experiment doing this to them, or die from exhaustion and stress.

Lorien has a good spaceport on a trace atmosphere, waterless, 60% gravity world, where hundred of millions of people live under a religious dictatorship with medieval technology (i.e. C5108D93).

A big part of the fun in making Classic Traveller work is taking a sentence like that, and forcing it to make sense. How can a medieval society survive on a world with basically no atmosphere or natural water? Well, on Lorien, they live in pressurized cave systems, ancient and massive lava tubes caverns deep underground. The sector at large follows Starseed, a religion based on teachings of The Shepherd for surviving on hostile worlds, so the Pontiff Uzuale de Lorien uses these teaching to motivate the mining industries and "piously" enrich Lorien.

I took the castle from Demon Driven to the Maw, and the time loop mechanic from Decagone. I extended it to 15 minutes because the castle is quite a bit larger than the suboceanic research lab. For the map, I swapped the Hell's Maw for the final two rooms of Decagone, with a secret passage from the Chapel to Decagone's Security Booth. 

Instead of a murder vampire party, the time loop became "The Festivities," which is a Purge-like party where everyone gets assigned a mask, based on Demon Driven to the Maw NPCs:

• Red Caps: ugly man red masks (2-in-6)
• Baobhan Sith: beautiful genderless white masks (1-in-6, on a 3)
• Villagers: stoic male black masks (3-in-6, on 4-6)
• The maskless Baobhan Sith chef was a robot, and I was rolling 2-in-6 chances for other hidden white mask robots 

Why do this though? Well, to rout out the "sinners" and for the Pontiff and his robotic servants to collect information on the nobles and influential of Lorien. I borrowed the shady secret police angle from Hard to Be a God by the Strugatsky brothers. There's some basic rules to follow during the Festivities:

• Red mask: Must do what white masks say / provocateurs
• White mask: Must do what black masks say / investigators
• Black mask: Must only speak when spoken to / arbiters
• Anyone rule-breaking or slothful must have their liver removed (i.e. killed)

The loop began with the Pontiff asking everyone to put on their masks, as he was to admit in the workers, commoners, to eat the leftovers from the banquet and join the festivities. This leads to many people not knowing the rules off the bat, including the PCs. 

In Decagone, it's implied the PCs are just out of range of the artifact's effects when the experiment starts charging the artifact. On Lorien, the people know what they're doing, and time the loop accordingly as the Pontiff wishes. The Pontiff also is immune, as are his secretly robotic servants. 

But why were the PCs immune to the loop? Well, a few days earlier, the Traveller's Aid Society came around distributing "vitamin enhanced water" which yeah, had vitamins but also a coppery metal taste of esoteric nanobots that interfere with the time loop device. (Yes, a magic protective potion, I know.) The PCs drank the lightly green water. 

And how to stop the loop in such a big castle filled with such grotesque violence? There were three "tests of faith":

• Fight back heroically upon violent provocation (so that a bot/Pontiff sees it)
• Defeat the Pontiff in the religious debate/card game (i.e. Helal)
• Get past Decagone's laser corridor, into the artifact room.

What I didn't anticipate, and frankly should have, was that one of the players, the Duke, was wearing Reflec armor which is highly effective against laser weaponry. He didn't have any time left though to figure out who the three scientists were, nor what the artifact was.

And since the players may read this, that info will have to wait for another blog post.

5MW RPG: Sectors, Serpents, and Gameplay Phases

Sectors contain one or many Systems. Systems consist of one or more stars, brown dwarfs, or black holes, and their orbiting bodies which always includes at least one World.

WIP player-facing Starmap for 5MW RPG

Sectors

Sectors are groups of Systems connected through hyperspace. Systems within the same Sector are not necessarily physical astronomical neighbors, but are spacetime is folded such as the Jumps required between them are “shorter” in practice. Sectors are depicted in game as hex map segments called Sector Segments.

Sector Segments take sizes between a single System up to ten Systems. Avatars construct their own starmaps in 5MW, placing their Sector Segments on a larger, empty hexmap, weaving their own tapestry of Sectors as they explore the 5 Million Worlds.

The idea here is that the frontier is always unknown, and that folks can build their own independent Sectors to plug-and-play as needed.

Systems

Star systems—whether a solitary star, multiple star system, brown dwarf or black hole—is called a System. Systems are often named [Star]-Sys or [World]-Sys, e.g. Spindle-Sys, Breq-Sys, etc. This abbreviation is common, e.g. in-Sys travel, out-Sys trading, etc.

Each Sys contains at least one World and one Ansible. A System, its Worlds, and other major orbital bodies are represented on a System Map: 

From the Mothership Search & Rescue Campaign post 

Worlds

A World is an orbital body where people live. This may be a planet, moon, asteroid, space station, superstructure, etc. Depending on their Form, some Avatars may need to make a Body Save against World Shock when visiting certain Worlds.

World Maps can be acquired through a World’s organization, or a close orbit scan with consent from the World’s peoples.

World Shock

Ecologies and 

Ansibles

Ansibles are the single ubiquitous remnant of the Serpents: superluminal communication nodes. From an Ansible, any Sys can communicate with another Ansible within its network in real time. Fully functional Ansibles can even use the Uplink to travel between systems, uploading the Mind and printing a new body at the System destination. Most Ansibles, however, are either derelict, thought lost, or controlled by a World’s power to disseminate or control information across the Sector.

Serpents & Serpentware

Extremely few in the 5 Million Worlds know what Serpents were/are, but their proximity to the Avatars is widespread, whether as myth, spacer tales, or historical or archaeological “fact”. Many cultures blame Serpents for the constant disappearances of large-scale Artificial Minds, Hive Minds, and other forms of superintelligence.

Serpents were/are capable of creating technology beyond the ability of any culture in 5MW Space to fabricate, and left remnants of these feats behind: superstructures and Serpentware, as well as two loose orders: the Serpent’s Lance and the Avatars.

Serpentware

While reproducing Serpentware is nigh-impossible, those with the necessary Skills and resources can repair and maintain this technology. Repairs of superstructure habitats, and the teaching of these methods, is common work for Avatars.

Other Serpentware ranges from personal equipment to starship components.

Serpentware Repairs

Serpentware almost always exists as part of a larger technological system. If Serpentware needs repairing, other Serpent ruins are very likely to be within the same System. Salvaging without permission is frowned upon, but sometimes skipped in pressing crises. Usable salvage for fixing Serpentware is counted in units called Remnants.

When maintenance requires newly fabricated components, an Avatar must use a Serpent Forge. Such incredible replication machines are found within superstructures, and very infrequently anywhere else.

Chrysalis

A Chrysalis is Serpentware whose main function is an advanced cryopod for unshielded Jumps through hyperspace. Their advanced functions include: healing pod, downloading a Mind, bio-print new bodies, and collecting a library of Forms for the Avatars to change between. A Chrysalis requires expending Exotic Matter to perform a single advanced function, and must have a hardwire connection to an Ansible.

Personal Serpentware

Highly advanced cyberware, bioware, personal protection, and other equipment also exists throughout the 5 Million Worlds. Yet Serpentware rarely exists in a vacuum; it serves its location, and holds importance to the peoples of its World. Such treasures belong to the World and its cultures, not those who find them. How the Avatars handle such encounters is important for their reputation.

Serpent’s Lance

Hunters who seek Avatars who have broken the Code, their promise to help. Members of the Lance are often former Avatars, with advanced starships and Serpentware. The Lance is not immune to corruption or transmuted belief systems.

Call of the Avatar

Avatars are mediators, liberators, merchants, explorers, and troubleshooters. They answer the Call of the Avatar to fight for peace, resolve crises, and help the peoples of the 5 Million Worlds. This is the Avatar’s pledge. Breaking this pledge may attract the ire of the Serpent’s Lance; Following this pledge may attract the ire of local Sector powers. The lives and adventure of Avatars tend to follow this pattern:

Starfaring Phase

The Avatars choose where to travel. They may begin with a small Sector map, or must find an Ansible to discover local hyperlanes.

In order to Jump to another system, Avatars must have a Jump Drive or better.* Out of respect for privacy and local traffic safety, Jump Points tend to be on the polar stellar axis of a System. Jumping elsewhere in a System is possible, with the relevant Skills, but often attracts major disfavor with space-faring locals.

Avatars may spend one unit of Exotic Matter and two weeks per light year, if they have a vessel capable of such stocking capacity, and the Warden is so inclined to build out a Realspace star map.

Avatars may begin with a small starship capable of superluminal travel called a Wedge.

Wedge

1. Airlock with Docking Sleeve.
2. Lander Bay. Contains one Lander Pod to travel to and from Worlds without their own travel infrastructure.
3. Bridge. Piloting, Comms, Sensors.
4. Commons. Bunks and central living space.
5. Cryobay. 10 cryopods.
6. Engines. Jump-I Drive for hyperspace travel (expends one unit of Exotic Matter per single hex Jump), and Loop-I Drive for in-system superluminal travel (expends one unit of Exotic Matter per three in-Sys uses).

Contact Phase

While contacting the peoples of a World when entering a System is technically optional, it is the done thing. Space pirates and warlords never call ahead, so Contact is common courtesy, and achieved across two steps: Ansible Ping and World Ping.

1) Ansible Ping

Avatars may attempt to ping the local System’s Ansible. If the Ansible is online, the Avatars can contact those who run the Ansible, even if only the Ansible's Virtual Intelligence that remains. If the Ansible is offline, they may skip to the World Ping and attempt to discover the Ansible’s location in the Looping Phase.

2) World Ping

Avatars may attempt to directly ping a local System’s Worlds. This may be necessary to contact peoples who do not control their Ansible, whether due to power or technological struggles. Such communications can be more easily hidden or obfuscated.

If neither pings yields results or the Avatars skip Contact, move into the Looping Phase.

Looping Phase

During the Looping Phase, the Avatars’ starship enters the standard stellar orbit. Except under unusual circumstances, a starship’s sensors can deliver a System map. Detailed information on planetary bodies, or World maps may require travelling to the orbital body.

If the Avatars chose to skip both pings, and the System has the means to initiate Contact, they attempt to ping the Avatars during the Looping Phase. Avatars enter Contact at Disadvantage.

In-Sys Travel

Looping the Sys, Avatars may travel between orbits, collect Matter, and explore Worlds using the starship’s Loop Drive. Travelling between any two regions, regardless of distance, requires two weeks and expends one use of Exotic Matter on the starship’s Loop Drive.

Looping on Mundane momentum does not expend Exotic Matter, and takes much longer.

With a comfortable starship, Avatars may Expend Limit on projects while Looping (pg. xx).

Travelling within a System depends on the infrastructure, regulations, and other local factors. Mostly, Avatar starships have free reign to travel across the system, but in certain cases they may be required to dock their starship and use local travel infrastructure, or perform special jobs or duties to extract Matter from the System.

Whether using a World’s infrastructure or their Landing Pod, Avatars may visit a Worlds to answer the Call.

The Call Phase

This is the adventure phase of the game, and makes up for most of the play. What happens depends on the World, its Peoples, the nature of the Call, and how the Avatars choose to resolve the issue.

5MW RPG, 1d100 Past Lives

The 5 Million Worlds are vast. Not all worlds are star-faring, but perhaps yours is. Through hardship, you've earned a place on a starship. Whatever life you had before, now begins a new one. A new birth. You are starborn. You are an Avatar.

5 Million Worlds is a space adventure RPG where you and your fellow Avatars explore space, seek new peoples, and help those in need. 

What did you do in your Past Life, before you became an Avatar?

1d100 Past Lives

Roll 1d100 for your Past Life, and take the associated Skill. In case of Skill doubles, you gain Advantage[+] with that Skill. You may also discuss another Skill choice with your Warden that you feel is relevant.

1d100	Past Life	Skill
00	Retired Avatar	Serpentware
01	Site Foreman	Extraction
02	Gateway Mechanic	Hyperspace
03	Regional Preservationist	Ecology
04	Residential Healthcare Provider	Medicine
05	Emulant Manufacturer	Synthetics
06	Sector Scout Captain	Sophontology
07	Cloning Expert	Biotech
08	Xenoanthropologist	Cultures
09	Fallout Survivor	Eschatology
10	Metropole Construction	Superstructures
11	Youth Instructor	Systems, Polyglot
12	Wildlife Exobiologist	Zoology
13	Outsys Merchant	Worldwise
14	Dockmaster	Spacewise
15	Rights Activist	Law
16	Solar Mass Physicist	Astrophysics
17	Group Therapist	Psychology
18	Life Support Regulator	Habitats
19	City Planner	Admin
20	Rewilding Planter	Botany
21	Space Pirate	Ordnance
22	Fertility Doctor	Medicine
23	Naval Lieutenant	Command
24	Esoteric Broker	Xenotech
25	Upcycle Scavenger	Mechanical Repair
26	Diaspora Genealogist	Psychohistory
27	Serpent Researcher	Serpentware
28	Synthetic Life Advocate	Synthetics
29	Farmer	Botany, Zoology
30	Hybrid Materials Synthesizer	Materials
31	Shipyard Patrol	Command
32	Nomadic Performer	Art
33	Regional Magistrate	Law
34	Violent Crimes Inspector	Worldwise
35	Mind Resources Director	Sophontology
36	Deep History Advisor	Psychohistory
37	Backalley Genemodder	Biotech
38	Terraformer	Planetology
39	Digital Cowboy	Uplink
40	Cross-reality Integrationist	Hyperspace
41	Technopriest	Serpentware
42	Bio-Residence Healthcare Provider	Pharmacology
43	High-Performance Athlete	Athletics
44	Leak Locator	Habitats
45	Hydrologist	Ecology
46	Serpent Tongue Scholar	Eschatology
47	EVA Repair Lead	Zero-G
48	Anti-boarding Tactical Response	CQC
49	Fracture Evaluator	Materials
50	Superstructure Engineer	Superstructures
51	Geothermal Energy Specialist	Reactors
52	Sys-admin	Spacewise
53	Uplink Admin	Uplink
54	Biodata Surgeon	Surgery
55	Chief Medical Officer	Surgery
56	Residential Consul	Polyglot
57	Sex Worker	Psychology
58	Heavy Security	CQC
59	Frontline Field Medic	Medicine
60	Cultural Ritual Keeper	Cultures
61	Simspace Architect	Simspace
62	Exoplanetary Arborist	Botany
63	Deep Sea Oceanic Upkeep	Mechanical Repair
64	Organized Crime	Pharmacology
65	Gas Giant Diver	Habitats
66	Macrodata Analyst	Systems
67	Materials Allocation Manager	Admin
68	Realspace Entertainer	Art
69	Simspace Entertainer	Simspace
70	Local Chieftan	Command
71	Space Elevator Technician	Superstructures
72	Moisture Farmer	Synthetics
73	Indentured Mineral Miner	Extraction
74	Shock Trooper	Firearms
75	Lumberjack	Ecology
76	Reclusive Clergymember	Worldwise
77	Import/Export Customs Official	Polyglot
78	Insys Merchant	Spacewise
79	Radiation Nurse	Biotech
80	Traffic Controller	Systems
81	Contact Diplomat	Sophontology
82	Enlisted Imperial	Firearms
83	Wanted “Terrorist”	Ordnance
84	Institute Professor	Xenotech
85	Hull Patcher	Mechanical Repair
86	Welfare Sociologist	Psychology
87	Hyperspace Diagnostics	Hyperspace
88	Ansible Comms Operator	Uplink
89	Trade Union Licensor	Admin
90	Megacity Crawler	Athletics
91	HabBubble Constructor	Materials
92	Exotic Materials Chemist	Exotics
93	Apocalypse Cult Leader	Eschatology
94	Ice Pusher	Reactors
95	Deep Space Astronomer	Astrophysics
96	Gas Giant Skimmer	Planetology
97	Rock Hopper	Extraction
98	Ring Preservationist	Zoology
99	Space Debris Cleaner	Zero-G

 

Search & Rescue Mothership Campaign

Loads of Mothership distress signal adventures ping out in the void, so here's a way for folks to get those to table as a cohesive string of one-shots.

Guess what chump? 

You've made it onto a Search & Rescue team. For the next three years, you're a crew member on a spaceship trawling on a patrol through three star systems. Once every six months, you'll have a chance for some Shore Leave.

Misenum, J1C-II 

THR:30 BTL:13 Autocannon 1 MDMG SYS:15 CREW:15 CRYOPODS:65.

• Autocannon, Laser Defense System
• Extended Cryobay: Adds 25 additional crypods per ship class.
• Tug Clamps & Mobile Engines: Affix to derelict in EVA, only for in-system travel

Your ship has a tug engine, and an expanded cryobay for potential survivors. The Company Pays the Bills (see Shipbreaker's Toolkit, pg. 40), and during this the patrol, your crew is responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the ship.

The Patrol Loop

Your ship, Misenum, travels on a three year patrol through three systems: Calacatta & Onyx, Bizimuth, and Agate. The Loop goes:

Calacatta > Onyx > Bizimuth > Agate > Bizimuth > Onyx > Calacatta 

Your crew spends six months on patrol, then does a Jump to the next system, takes Shore Leave there before taking off for another six month patrol. Rinse, repeat. 

During a six month tour, the Warden rolls four times on the 2d10 Distress Signals table, one roll for each three weeks in space. Before assigning rerolls as All Clear, check to see if there might be an adventure that fits a previous theme. 

While the Patrol Loop suggests taking Shore Leave at designated areas, your players could also discover pirate stations or other stop-overs to spend their time. Play it loose, let the system dynamics grow as you play.

To further flesh out some of these empty worlds, check out the Rimspace Planet Generator.

Calacatta & Onyx: Binary star system

• Calacatta: Rich system
• Bluewhite star
• Cal-4: lush, terraformed world; gated 
• Cal-5:  home hub station orbits factory and mining planet
• Onyx: Resource-rich system
• Orange binary star; Jump required 
• Onyx-a: Hot Jupiter, loads of resources on moons, asteroids. 
• Shore Leave location

Bizimuth: Chaotic young system, loads of freelancers

• Yellowhite star
• Biz-6: Shore Leave station, orbits ice giant.
• Hyperdense asteroid field between Biz-6 and outer gas giant, Biz-7
• High-impact ice debris field past Biz-7 orbit out towards captured rogue planet Biz-8
• Biz-4: Oceanic world

Agate: Outpost system

• Orange star
• Agate-a, b, c: dead terrestrial worlds, each with ongoing, independent terraformation studies
• Agate-d: Shore Leave Station, orbits superearth with microscopic life
• Agate-e: cross-ringed gas giant, hosts a few remote research stations 

2d10 Distress Signals

Every three weeks of space travel, roll 2d10 on the following table. The sole unique entry to this one would be Cold Opening, which takes place on the PCs' own ship. If it gets rolled, save that one for after a Shore Leave when they're preparing to jump into the next system. 

2. Cold Opening
3. There is a Goblin on the Loose in Icarus Station

4. Adrift

5. Terus Maju (from Distress Signals)

6. Chiron (from Distress Signals)

7. The Logorrheum (from Terrors from the Cosmos)

8. The Ship Who Swallowed a Spider

9. Prevenge (from Distress Signals)

10-12. All Clear. The ship is cramped, stinky, and boring. Gain 1d5 Stress.

13. Warped Beyond Recognition

14. Aphrodite: Luxury Space Yacht (from Terrors from the Cosmos)

15. Circle the Flame

16. Firebird (from Distress Signals)

17. Dead in the Water

18. Rogue Brood

19. Argosy (from Distress Signals)

20. SIS/TR

But wait, there's more!

You could just use this for any Mothership campaign, really. Replace the entries on the table with modules you own and want to run (note the bell curve), and roll 2-3 times to generate Jobs. 

You lose the potential for ship-to-ship combat, and you'll have to do your own leg work for potential system hopping, but it works. Though in this secondary case, I'd also recommend setting a Job timer and maybe consequences for if the Job doesn't get done right so bad stuff still has a chance to turn up (à la TOMBS). 

Now that this one is done, I should get around to the Ocean Superearth and Jungle Moon campaign framework tools, too...