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INTRODUCTION “Escaping the Guardian Ship” is a scenario for the crew of a space ship to escape another ship that intercepted them. We encourage you to use the science fiction rule set you like best, adapting what you find here to run in a variety of systems. In the spirit of adaptation, you could run this material as a single session one-shot or the beginning of a campaign. This zine was created as an effort to assist Jim Ward. [I’ll let someone else explain that. And the idea is to pay homage to the Metamorphasis Alpha he is famous for popularizing, I guess?] FOREWORD

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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WHAT IS THE GUARDIAN SHIP? The Colony Ship was launched to save society. Unknown to that ship, a secondary ship, a sister ship, was also created in case the first ship failed in its mission. It launched days after the first. No one on the Guardian Ship knows what happened to the colony ship. Unfortunately, the Guardian Ship passed through a massive cloud of cosmic energy, and almost all humans died. Of the few who survived, many mutated horribly. The only true human survivors still alive on the ship are safely locked away in the panic room infrastructure of the command network. The human mind struggles to grasp the scale of the Guardian Ship. It is over fifty miles long, with more than twenty massive vertical decks carrying different biomes and life support technologies for protecting live cargo that must undergo an impossibly long voyage, generations passing with the whisper of calendar pages. The labyrinthine cities of storage levels and machine levels are too big to memorize in a human lifetime. It took centuries to build the ship in space, it has never tasted a planet’s atmosphere. With the humans cut off and the mutants mostly insane and aggressive, the ship coped as best it could by interpreting the last orders it was given. Simulated Intelligences run the ship, capable of creating and repairing robots to do their bidding. Energy systems, defense systems, biome controls, and other crucial functions are in the Simulated Intelligence’s authority. Still, there were no clear orders about what to do with mutated populations. Human and animal traits ran together into animalistic creatures that were not fully human but not animals anymore. Subsystems of the robotics network were subverted or lost, twisting their orders to suit new masters or to make new slaves. The ship was once an impossibly orderly world unto itself, and now that world has skewed dark and chaotic.

Do the characters know this ahead of time, or will they piece it together as they go? That depends on what seems most fun for your group.

For even more oddity, swap out the human colonists for grays, or cat people, or your favorite science fiction race. Why should humans have all the colony ship fun?

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GETTING TO THIS POINT The star charts did not anticipate the lumbering mass of the Guardian Ship obstructing the space lane. You were in a hurry, and perfunctory scanning easily missed the huge obstacle, at the speed you were going. Before anyone quite realized what happened, your ship triggered the latent defenses of the Guardian Ship. You crashed into it, more or less As the characters stagger out of the smoking ruin of the hull into breathable atmosphere, you can quickly sum it up for them. The Guardian Ship’s attack was swift and ruthless. The klaxons wailed as you faced the focused ionic field surge, the battery of turbolasers that raked an almost surgical strike across the ship, and the tractor beams that reeled you in and dumped you in this vast hangar. Now your proud ship is damaged, listing over in the neglected wreckage of a hangar bay so big it dwarfs your ship in comparison. It is time for a damage report. How bad is it?

ALTERNATE SETUPS

We don’t like crashing. Instead of the characters’ ship crashing into the hangar, you could have them approached by someone who had a vessel lost to the Guardian Ship. This vessel contains something they cannot live without; the family fortune, government secrets, the cure for a plague, whatever. Before dying, the captain sent out a communication that reached the ship owner, detailing what they need to get out. At no small expense, the owner has located the Guardian Ship, and now pays you to retrieve the vessel from its abandoned prison. How will they get aboard without suffering a similar fate? I suggest a volley of boarding torpedoes! Load them up and fire them through the hull on a one way trip, expecting them to escape on the repaired vessel. Are they in a race with another party?

Going native. Instead of having a ship crash, they could be trying to prep a subordinate escape vessel that is part of the Guardian Ship to launch and carry them to a planet, escaping the Guardian Ship’s reach. They could serve the tiny minority of humans (or humans and acceptable mutants) who hid in the panic room infrastructure of the command network, for generations after the Event. Now they’ve gathered enough intelligence to believe they can make the ship spaceworthy and get out, if they get the needed parts.

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AUTHORITY, RESOURCES, AND SCOPE Here are some answers you should have worked out ahead of time. If you are using an established group, then think about how your assumptions fit into the action aboard the Guardian Ship.

Who is in charge? Ideally you’ve got PC captain. For groups that don’t play that way, you could incapacitate the captain in the crash, or have a somewhat feckless and unhelpful captain, or a bold and strong captain who looks after the ship and delegates the work.

How many NPCs do you need, based on scope? There are three missions to get necessary parts to get the ship on its way. If you want one session of play, then you will likely need enough NPCs to have two other teams fetching the other needed parts. Or, you could have the PCs have to do one or more missions. Also, it takes some time and expertise to fix the ship even with the right parts; the local half-crazed Simulated Intelligence can help with that, or you need some crew techs ready to serve, or the PCs will need to do it if they have the skills necessary. The basic question is, how many NPCs do you need? If they are mounting three expeditions, defending the ship, and quickly effecting repairs, you need dozens.

Are you open to lots of scope creep? You could play a single mission. Or, you could make persuading the Simulated Intelligence to make repair robots to help into a mission on its own. The characters could decide they want a closer look at the Bounders operation, maybe steal some valuable intelligence or biological material to sweeten the trip’s profits. Or you want to have the Chasekin kidnap and ransom some key crew. If you want more missions, keep an ear on the players’ table chatter and form some ideas for how to turn their idle questions and curiosities into expeditions.

A spectrum of violence to diplomacy. Different groups will like different amounts of combat versus negotiation and talking. Try to approach as many encounters as possible with the conscious decision to include ways for the crew to talk their way out of violence, or pull a gun and throw down. The game will be richer if you don’t assume they must go one direction or the other in any encounter. If unsure how the conversation might go, one option that is usually available is “take me to your leader” for parlay with someone who has more decision making power—in a setting under a potentially hostile NPC’s control, possibly without weapons.

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INTERRUPTION: THE WELCOMING PACK Many groups need a little shock of danger to get settled in. A pack of a dozen chasekin raced towards this area as the ship was coming in, and they hope to pounce on the newcomers and subdue or destroy them before they get their bearings. They like their prey weak.

Chasekin are wolfish mutated humans. They have recurve legs, they are covered in shaggy fur, and their humanoid hands have curving bone claws. Their faces are almost human, with an elongated muzzle and black translucent teeth. Their eyes reflect light, shining in the dim. They use weapons made from the teeth and claws of their fallen, worked in as knives, spiked clubs, and short blades. Chasekin: 2 HD, hand weapons for damage (with weapons or teeth and claws), leather armor equivalent, half again as fast as humans.

Their raid leader (Gnawdit) is crimson, most of the rest of the pack are browns, blacks, and grays. If questioned, they will assume their captors are kidnappers like themselves, so they will cooperate. What do they know?

They call themselves the Chasekin, they howl at the engines that drive the world, they hunt and they capture. They are strong.

Fore, you will face the Bounders and their armory. Aft, you face the Colossus and its slaves, the Twisted. No one comes out alive. Beware the Lightning Den, where the engines exile their rejected slaves. Also, beware the Hedge, for nothing can penetrate its growths.

o (For more detail on this, see “Focusing the Action” on p. ###.)

If the crew is really into questioning the prisoner, or has good questions, you can refer to the “Chasekin” section on p. ###.

Wrap it up. If you are done with questioning, you can have the predoshite hear a change in the engines and grow fearful and unwilling to talk. If it can, the creature will bark and call out to its kin with howling, warning them away, and it will insist the crew is cursed. That wide-eyed superstition brings the question and answer segment to a close.

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DAMAGE REPORT Ideally the player characters will be of sufficient importance on the ship to be the ones delivering the briefing. Go ahead and give the appropriate information to the appropriate officers to report! Copy the relevant pages and give them a handout to reference and record notes. Before the briefing starts, encourage them to elaborate on the situation if the group needs clarification, and you’ll work the consequences in on your end. (Were there casualties? Up to you.)

The hull damage isn’t bad, but it will take 10 technician hours to get the supplemental vacuum screens in place.

The real problems are the need for administrative access, the need for a multi-phasic burner catalyst, and the need for an atmospheric micro-scrubber unit. Without those, there is no escape. Whether they realize it or not, what the crew needs is a chat with the Simulated Intelligence about where their prizes may be located on the ship. When the conversation is winding down (or bogging down) have a lookout report an intruder. Or let the intruder walk right in, depending on their precautions. What if those super-clever players figure out a different plan and ignore these objectives? Well, let them! See how their plan plays out. Hopefully you’ll give them a chance at success, and use the various factions and environments and ideas in this zine to spice it up. This plan is the default, a place to start, not the one way that the adventure must play out. They decide they want to staple an escape pod module, a storage module, and a gun module on top of an engine and blow it loose, riding it to a star system? Well, maybe that would work. Come up with what they’ll need to pull it off…

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Tactical We need administrative access to get out. The Guardian Ship has orders to collect any ships that fly nearby, so if we try to escape we’ll just be pulled back unless we can somehow get permission from the ship to escape.

If we try to fight our way out, we will lose; the power banks on the Guardian Ship are impossibly huge, and the Simulated Intelligences have been able to keep the ship’s shields and weapons in good repair.

One or more Simulated Intelligences are running the ship. o They can probably tell us what we need to do to get access and

permission.

Engineering The fuel lines and the power regulation processor are shot. The available fuel will only stretch to reach safety if we get a multi-phasic burner catalyst. That allows for far greater efficiency in networking systems and in managing power spikes and troughs in normal function. (20 technician hours to install.)

No, we can’t just fix the one we’ve got. It’s beyond repair. The unit is probably about 300 pounds, a big oval thing about fifteen feet around. By starship part standards, quite modest; but not easy to transport.

Engineering Life support is going to be a problem. The ship will not have enough atmospheric cycling and filtration unless they add a compatible atmospheric micro-scrubber unit. If they can get one of those installed the ship will be fine. (10 technician hours to install.)

Of course there are other workarounds, but they are beyond desperate. The unit is surprisingly efficient and compact, about the size of a cooler chest.

Technician Hours. How long will it take to put the part in? You can do the math based on the number of techs the crew can assign. If the crew doesn’t have enough, the Simulated Intelligence can make bots that would be very efficient at repairs, if properly motivated. Interpret to fit your game’s repair rules.

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THE BIOANDROID, JACK As soon as the Guardian Ship detected the crew approaching, it began building a bioandroid to act as liaison and tour guide. Now the bioandroid is finished and approaching the crew. It introduces itself as Jack, their interface with the Simulated Intelligence of the Guardian Ship.

No hair, eyes are white with black pupils, skin is an impossibly uniform mocha. It is wearing a synthetic wrap over its head and shoulders and hips, cloaked in one sheet of fabric. It has no shoes, no fingernails, no pores. Smooth and alien, androgynous, pleasant voice. Jack: 1 HD, it cannot or will not fight, leather armor equivalent, half again as fast as humans. Everything it knows is known by the Simulated Intelligence. It can touch computers and interface them with the Simulated Intelligence. It can remotely commission robots to be constructed and commanded, without speaking.

Jack is primarily a tool to turn computer use into social interaction. The backup is to go back to computer use, which is fine. Two purposes. The bioandroid Jack wants to give a tour guide and help guests feel welcome aboard the paragon of orderly technical triumph that is the Guardian Ship (even though it isn’t anymore.) However, the real usefulness is using Jack as a way to talk to the Simulated Intelligence. Remember Jack’s purpose is not to help the crew escape, but to impress them with a version of the Guardian Ship and make their stay comfortable until they have administrative clearance to leave. If your game has a system for social interaction, use it! Jack wants to impress them on behalf of the ship, so flattery and playing along are effective. To get what they want, they’ll have to wring concessions out of this interface, or get to a terminal access and work it out using hacking and engineering computer skills. Opening pitch. This is what Jack wants to get across right away.

Its name is Jack and it serves the Simulated Intelligence: Guardian Ship, Sigs.

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Welcome! Please accept a tour on behalf of the Guardian Ship, honored guests. We thank you for joining us on our voyage to Saardria VIII, our new colony.

Jack will try to touch a computer connected to a viewscreen to hijack it for PowerPoint time. Jack wants to show off the Telmar Bay, one of the vast hangars available for servicing friendly inter-steller ships on the long voyage. Features include:

o Direct access to the Belerra Preserve, a nature park. o The magnificent Sorrel Control Station, a panopticonic labor-saving

complex that monitors miles of territory from one place. o Tardexia Medical Center, an icon of peak medical care and

research, miles of hospital care along one central corridor.

Jack will invite the crew to assigned lodging, or they can stay with their ship, either way.

o If they accept lodging, that’s addressed on p. XXX. Any time someone points out the images on the screen don’t match what the bay (or other area) looks like, Jack will be puzzled for a moment and then say “Tech Support will resolve the issue.” Each time that happens, the Simulated Intelligence will route a demand through the system, and it will be answered by Teksuppar. (See p. XXX.) They arrive after a time, and once they are aware of intruders, more will follow. What can they learn from Jack? For one, Jack will give them all yellow bracelets. These were manufactured when he was, to give to guests, for access issues. He has as many as he needs, up to 12. The yellow bracelet allows access to terminals to interface with the Simulated Intelligence (Sigs) without Jack.

Authority issues. A Deck Commander’s authorization is needed to release a vessel to fly away from the Guardian Ship. The one who can grant that authorization is Commander Lawrence Josephe. His current location is in the Forward Observation Office of the Sorrel Control Station. (Page XXX.)

Multiphasic Burner Catalyst. First, Jack will explain those units are in storage in the mechanical sublevel Alta Durel (Page XXX.) They aren’t there, however; if pressed, Jack grudgingly reveals that energy signature is present in Lift Control Substation 86. (Page XXX.)

Atmospheric Microscrubber Unit. Jack knows that all such units are concentrated in the parks and recreational units, the nearest one being the

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Belerra Preserve. It would be in the cycling dome that is used for managing the park’s processes.

The crew can learn other things from Jack, or from clever computer work on a terminal interfacing with the Simulated Intelligence. Use your own creativity to come up with how easy that is to get to, and whether there are other misleading conclusions to draw along the way. If the crew wants to do violence to Jack, reject it, or kill it, that’s fine. Either make another one to send to them, or let them live with the consequences and have the Simulated Intelligence interpret them as a threat, sending repair robots to eject them from the hangar. If they flee, they lose their ship, and now they are stranded and hunted in a strange place. Or, maybe the Simulated Intelligence does nothing to react. See how the crew plays it, and how offensive they try to be to the avatar of the system.

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LAYOUT OF THE AREA

Author’s note: I don’t have really strong feelings about this. This is a sketch someone else can turn into a more visually appealing map. I think the Metroid Prime wire-frame mapping approach is really neat, possibly with little details to quickly visually convey the nature of the area, would be great. Anyway, this should serve as a starting point. Metroid example: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RJjEHTZI06o/Ujc2FfDLduI/AAAAAAAAAa8/oEZ0T-9MHko/s1600/CxJkV.png

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AREA SUMMARY

Telmar Bay. Massive hangar able to refit capitol ships, where the crew arrives. No-man’s-land for several factions.

Sorrel Control Station. Panopticonic (one office suite observes miles of ship.) Currently occupied by Chasekin, who lair there and use the offices as headquarters for kidnapping schemes. In the Forward Office, the crucified corpse of Commander Josephe, with an access control bracelet.

Lift Control Substation 86. The Lift Control is designed to move ships from one hangar to another, it is a logistical complex, massive tunnels, totally broken now. The Teksuppar Clan lair at the top of the shaft, using the multiphasic burner catalyst mounted at the top of the shaft.

Coral Stav. This is a key diagnostic substation that regulated the energy in the sector of the ship, and kept detailed records of its function. The power now flows erratically here, flash-frying intruders. The data is inaccessible.

Belerra Preserve. The bio park has turned into a jungle, along with human and mutant human barbarians living out pulpy adventure. Location of the Temple of the Flying King, and also the atmospheric micro-scrubber unit.

Tardexia Medical Center. One massive central corridor connects miles of medical subcompounds. The area belongs to Chief Medical Officer Crayt and his medically reclaimed army. He is a bounty hunter willing to work with other factions, and he has access to drugs and surgical equipment.

Alta Durel. A machinery sub-level upper-tier connects to the Telmar Bay to service its needs. The Shroomvolk have many small enclaves all through the area, and they claim it as their own.

Kedrill Power Station. The Radiant Colossus and its slaves, the Twisted, rule the power station. It barely works, but the radiation is dangerous.

Bounders Life Support Processing. Massive vats for cycling air and waste and water and chemicals, decominant and recombinant tech. Currently taken over by the “Bounders” who are mutated rabbit people, with lots of guns and robots to defend their territory strongly.

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SHROOMVOLK If the crew are adventuring in the area around Telmar Bay, they could find themselves ducking into all sorts of corners to hide. They might fall down holes. They might spend the night somewhere. If you need an encounter, the Shroomvolk are common in the area.

Shroomvolk are half the height of a human, sturdily built with a variety of mushroom caps over their bright compound eyes. Most have two arms and two legs, and are shades of earth tones (though those with toxins tend to have brighter colors and flashier decoration. The only weapons they use are crude spears and clubs. Shroomvolk: 1-3 HD, hand weapons for damage, leather armor equivalent, half as fast as humans. Equipped with chemical weapons.

Usually when they meet they offer psychic exchange with a cap wiggle, or one just fires off some spores and initiates contact (unless the target makes a saving throw.) Only one in a group tends to speak to strangers. They communicate psionically by connecting on a higher mode of consciousness and exchanging ideas and feelings very directly there; they are difficult to deceive while connected chemically. They also cultivate spores that have varying effects, just as humans cultivate artistic expressions meant to evoke feelings. A saving throw can stave off the worst of the effects, otherwise most special spores render the target much less effective for 1d6 x 10 minutes. Here are some sample spore effects.

Fear. Intense paranoia sets in, but shaking hands and short breath rob the anger and fear of strength. (-2 to all rolls or similar penalty.)

Intensity. Take 1 hit point of damage for every round of strenuous action, because muscles and blood are boiling with feelings too strong to express, and calmness is impossible.

Openness. Feel things you’ve not let yourself feel, but simultaneously be completely open to the environment. Fearful and stressful things hit much harder, but awareness is intensified. Buried issues tend to surface in strange, non-threatening ways.

Integration. You see how everything in the universe fits together, finally. When the experience comes to an end and everything falls apart again,

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most of those who experience this sob inconsolably, as though they lost something precious they can never have back.

Sleep. A deep sleep with only peaceful slow-paced dreams, intensely restful; lasts 2d6 hours, wake refreshed as though after 8 hours good sleep. If woken before it is time, groggy until the next good sleep.

Sensory Confusion. The target can taste color, see sound, hear textures, and so on. It is impossibly disorienting outside a low-stimulus environment.

Light. They can spread spores on surfaces, and the glow is as candlelight.

Allergens. The target is helpless, sneezing and coughing with watering eyes, racked with pain. Take 1d4 hit points per 10 minutes of suffering, at a -4 penalty to everything (or equivalent for your system.)

Shroomvolk live in communities based on trios; three to a pod, three pods to a patch, three patches to a ring, three rings to a grove. Many communities only have a ring or fewer members. They are stealthy scavengers who live on water, carrion, and other fungi. They wander all around their communities, collecting useful items. How much they talk between communities is seasonal (and up to the GM) but word of good or bad relations with one community eventually gets around. They know the area and are often willing to talk, though if threatened or robbed or poorly treated they may attack later in a forceful ambush with numbers on their side. The spores only last about 12 hours once removed from a Shroomvolk. Sample nicknames they give themselves for the convenience of strangers:

1. Stalkright 2. Cappin Cap 3. Party Animal 4. Slicknuckle 5. Prolonged Fart 6. Salesman 7. Beery 8. Stonerdude 9. Whirled Peas 10. Crabshack

11. Dustpuddle 12. Spongewood 13. Slowboat 14. Digger 15. Backhoe 16. Mudbuggy 17. Snotlike 18. Chillywind 19. Dusty 20. Acumen

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THE FRINGE: FLEXIBLE PLANT MENACE If you need to give the players the impression that an area is going to get consistently more difficult until it is beyond their capacity, the Fringe is a great way to do it. When the cosmic energy swarmed through the ship with killing power, some malign purpose in it sifted through the millennia of adaptive attack and defense weaponry built into plant genetics. Not only was this encoded arms race exaggerated and enhanced, the plants were given the power to think. The more greenery connects in a mass, the more capable of thought the plant becomes. Small things like trees are not even dimly aware, but as the biomass increases at the edges of occupied territories, a dark intellect is cultivated where no one can see it. Now centuries have passed, and there may well be an overall master plan deep, deep in the vessel.

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FOCUSING THE ACTION The GM has two needs to balance. On the one hand, the GM should not have to map out the miles-long ship and be ready to pull out exciting adventure in any direction at a moment’s notice. On the other hand, the players should be free to go where they want and do what they want without being forced along a pre-set route. This section is about striking that balance by providing reasons for players to decide to go where the GM has prepared the action, without being heavy-handed about it. Each bounding section will also include a note about why they might want to revisit the area later, beyond the scope of this zine.

Where is the adventure? This zine focuses on the adventure in Telmar Bay, Substation 86, Sorrel Control Station, and Belerra Preserve.

Outside the Ship and Dorsal Exploration If the crew want to go outside, then they will have to deal with the repair robots that clear off detritus and keep the ship functioning well. They will encounter a 1 HD repair bot that does 1d4 damage and has medium armor. When they dispatch it, it releases a signal. In 1d6 x10 minutes, more bots will come. Bots can increase HD up to 5, get up to 4 attacks for 1d8 each, and start adding perks like flamethrowers, acid spraying wands, clamp arms to crush obstacles, and other things. Armor starts at medium, then goes to heavy, then super-heavy. The more obdurate a threat, the more the ship scales its response to remove the threat. They can go outside the ship, but the clock is ticking; the more damage they do, the more foes they’ll face. All the repair robots look like variations on creepy spider/crab mashups. Going Fore Heading towards the front of the ship must pass through a massive vertically integrated territory called the Bounder’s Life Support Processing. The Bounders (as the mutant rabbit people are called) expand the use of the vats to grow various drugs, and possibly other things; they breed fast, but may also use clones. They also have unprecedented access to the Simulated Intelligence bot-making protocols.

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Many Bounders use bots to enhance themselves. They kneel on spider walkers, strap on packs with extra robotic arms, make metallic bots of burden, and otherwise integrate the tech. They also have a supply of high powered rifles. Combining their sniping, high speed, and bot support, they repel intruders effectively. They reasonably assume everyone is out to get them, they are not looking for friends. Bounders general are 1 HD, though they can level. They use decent energy weaponry, and use bots as combat assistants as needed (see the repair bots for stat ideas.) Why might they go there later? The Bounders have some really great medical and recreational drugs. They also have excellent cybernetic technology, for replacing limbs or enhancing function. Plus, they seem relatively stable and pleasant, and they know how to party; if a crew was to rescue some of their agents held by Chasekin, for example, they might have an “in” to make some friends. They could use a trade route to new markets, and the crew might be able to initiate something like that. Going Aft The Kedrill Power Station is massive. It has reactors and tanks of coolant and endless banks of instrumentation designed to prevent a disaster; this is one of the stations powerful enough to trigger a self-destruct for the whole ship. The area belongs to the Radiant Colossus, a massive animated statue that gushes radiation out. It is worshiped by masses of the Twisted, who are mutated and eventually killed by the radiation; in the meantime, they get enough to eat, and are part of a powerful faction that no one dares cross. Moving into this territory attracts war parties that escalate until they win, and survivors are brain-fried and inducted into the ranks. The Radiant Colossus is an 8 HD monster with super-heavy armor. It stands about 20 feet tall and wide, and 10 feet thick. It can lift multi-ton loads with its giant fists, which do massive damage, and its chest cannon automatically kills unless the targets (in a 10’ swath) make a saving throw (in which case they mutate instead of dying outright.)

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The Twisted are much less formidable, most are 1 HD but they get up to 5 HD. They use hand weapons and energy weapons as they are available, and some have light, medium, or heavy natural armor. Some priests of the Radiant Colossus carry weird symbolic objects that channel their god’s weird energy. They brandish the symbol, and radiation fries the target. No one knows how this transmission works. Why might they go there later? The Simulated Intelligence knows that the Colossus is a mech, a giant suit of power armor. It was designed to make repairs in the heart of the generator, which is at very low ebb. If the Colossus were to be reclaimed, and the generator repaired, a new standard of living might be possible. Dark areas could be reclaimed. Secrets would certainly come to light. Going Ventral If they go down, then they first encounter the Alta Durel upper reach of the mechanical deck below. The area is fairly infested with the Fringe. There are villages of the Shroomvolk which are neutral until the crew’s actions provoke them to see the crew as friends or foes. Crews can get lost among the Shroomvolk, who have hallucinogenic spores they use to communicate, putting all participants in the same psychic space. (They are far better at managing multiple levels of consciousness simultaneously than the very-differently-structured linear minds of humans.) More on the Shroomvolk on page XXX, and the Fringe on page XXX. Why might they go there later? If energy is restored to the lower levels, the Fringe could be driven Going Core Deep The various corridors and access ports to go from nearer the hull to nearer the core of the ship are all interconnected with Coral Stav “Lightning Den.” The energy ruptures in the Stav send random surges through that are capable of destroying circuitry and inflating most protective gear like a bag of microwave popcorn.

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How random? Well, do they want to risk it? Why might they go there later? A mysterious fringe plant element broke the machinery in the Stav, possibly with the intent of creating this random dangerous effect. Why? Could it be related to the fact the Stav has complex diagnostic equipment, and might reveal something about what’s going on in the ship’s unvisited areas that might be useful for others to know, that the plants might wish to hide?

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POTENTIAL COMPLICATIONS Are things going too well? Do you want to get some more adventure into your session? Here are some unexpected complications you can throw at your crew. Fighting for friendship. Jacks or the Simulated Intelligence informs the crew that the chasekin are attempting to instruct it that the crew are enemies, not friends. If they do not wish this rewrite to happen, then they should proceed to programming station 38 and address the conflict there. (If the chasekin get control, then the Simulated Intelligence will try to destroy the crew.) It’s a race, to drive the chasekin off before the computer is turned against the crew. The doctor is in. Someone the crew annoyed has hired Chief Medical Officer Crayt and his medically reclaimed army to act as a bounty hunter, going after the crew to bring members (dead or alive?) to their enemies. Crayt has drugs, weapons, and a supply of bio-enhanced mutants and humans whose systems have been scrubbed for purity, and enhanced with a little something extra. Most of the soldiers are 2 HD with a +2 to hit and damage and the equivalent of medium armor, tough and fast and armed with advanced weapons. Hacker pixies?! As the centuries wore on, viruses took their toll on the Simulated Intelligence. One result was the accidental construction of hacker pixies; fist sized robots that fly and attach to tech, hacking it in seconds. A group of them take over repair bots and attack the crew’s ship, as a distraction so more can get inside and start taking things over. This could include Jack, or members of the crew with cybers, or prisoners with mechanical elements, etc. Can the tech-savvy among the crew scrub the code or zap the pixies before irreparable harm is done? You can never go home. As a twist, the GM might tell the crew that they cannot remotely activate everything they need to so the ship can leave. One person at least must be left behind, and if that one person is incapacitated, no one gets out (so it’s probably best a party stay behind.) Is the crew willing to leave NPCs in this strange place? Or are they willing to try and make this ship their home?

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FURTHER ADVENTURES Do you and your players want to keep using this setting? What further adventures might you have here? There are a lot of suggestions under “Focusing the Action” on page XXX, but let’s look at some other possibilities for keeping it fresh and active.

Start over. Make new characters who are loyal to and members of a faction. Your system of choice should have something you can adapt to be a Bounder, or Twisted, or Chasekin, or whatever. Pick a faction you like, and go for it!

Blended continuity. Let these characters continue, but as bad things happen to them, replace them with native characters.

Kick the mobile. Things are more or less in a balanced state until the crew and their ship arrive, throwing things off. Something even bigger happens to give one faction the advantage, and as they rapidly grow in power, the other factions must react somehow.

Move the party. Send the Guardian Ship through a wormhole into a setting you like. Open a portal aboard that connects to a fantasy world. Mash it up with something else.

Map out more of the ship. More factions, more key positions, more spooky foes. Borrow from inspiring sources without shame. Make it your own as you expand what players can do aboard your version of the ship.

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Still to do:

The Fringe write-up.

Chasekin write-up.

The three main missions.