From one point of view, the playing of a roleplaying game can be described as the organized exchange of information between players. Particularly numerical information.

GM: Give me an attack roll.
Player: 17.
GM: You hit.
Player: I do 18 points of damage.
GM: The orc falls dead at your feet!

The player generates a number (rolling their attack skill plus a d20 roll) and gives it to the GM. The GM performs a mathematical operation on that number (comparing it to the orc’s armor class) and the result of that operation causes him to request an additional number from the player. The player generates that number (by rolling the damage for their weapon) and reports it to the GM, who once again does an operation on that number (comparing it to the orc’s remaining hit points) and determines an outcome (the orc dies).

This seems simple and intuitive. And, in this case, it largely is.

But it turns out that how we process and pass numerical information around the table can have a big impact on play. For example:

GM: The orc’s AC is 17. Give me an attack roll.
Player: I hit. 18 points of damage.
GM: The orc falls dead at your feet!

By passing a piece of information (and the associated mathematical operation) over to the player, this GM has significantly improved the efficiency of their communication. If the orc hadn’t died (or if there are other identical orcs), this efficiency compounds over time because the GM doesn’t have to keep passing that piece of information to the player.

Of course, efficiency is not the be-all and end-all of a roleplaying game. There are any number of reasons why a GM might want to keep the orc’s armor class secret from the players (either as a general principle or due to specific circumstances). My point is not that these other considerations are somehow “wrong,” but rather simply that in choosing those other things the GM is sacrificing efficiency.

In many cases, however, the GM isn’t aware that this is a choice that they’re making. And often there are no reasons that might justify the inefficiency; the flow of information (and the impact it’s having on play) just isn’t something the GM is thinking about.

For a long time, this wasn’t something that I understood, either. I’d have discussions with people complaining that such-and-such a system was super complicated and a huge headache to play, and I would be confused because that didn’t match my experience with the game. It would have been easy to pat myself on the back and think, “Well, I guess I’m just smarter than they are,” but I would also have players say to me, “I’d played such-and-such a system before and I hated it, but you really made everything make sense. Can’t wait to play again.” And I’d scratch my head, because I really hadn’t done anything special in terms of teaching how the game worked.

The difference was in the flow of information. Not only can the flow of information around the gaming table be inefficient, it can also be confusing and burdensome.

ECLIPSE PHASE

We think of game mechanics primarily in terms of numerical values and how those values are created or manipulated. But in actual practice, many mechanical resolutions are performed by multiple people at the table. If you think of the resolution as a ball, it often has to be passed back and forth. Or you might think of it as a dance, and if we — as a table of players — don’t coordinate our actions in performing the resolution we’ll end up stepping on each other’s toes.

This efficient passing of information is an example of system mastery. Often, as a table gains experience with a particular RPG together, they’ll intuitively find the patterns of behavior that work. But this doesn’t always happen, and when it doesn’t we can benefit from consciously thinking about:

• What numbers we say
• Who is responsible for saying them
• How we say them

Let me give a simple example of this, using Eclipse Phase.

Eclipse Phase is a percentile system. You modify your skill rating by difficulty and then, if you roll under that number on percentile dice, you succeed. In addition, your margin of success is equal to the number you roll on the dice. If you roll 30+ (and succeed) you get an excellent success; if you roll 60+ you get an exceptional success.

Here’s how things often go when I’m introducing new players to Eclipse Phase (particularly those new to roll-under percentile systems entirely):

GM: Give me a Navigation check.
Player: I got a 47.
GM: What’s your skill?
Player: 50.
GM: Great. That’s a success. An excellent success, actually, because you rolled over 30. Here’s what happens…

The players don’t know what numbers to give me, and so I need to pull those numbers out of them in order to perform the necessary operation (determining if this is a success or failure and the degree of success.) As players start to master the system, this will morph into:

GM: Give me a Navigation check.
Player: I got an excellent success.
GM: Great. Here’s what happens…

They can do this because they’ve learned the mechanics and now know that their roll of 47 when they have a skill of 50 is an excellent success. (In this, the exchange mirrors that of a player attacking an orc in D&D when they know it has AC 17, right? They don’t need to pass me the information to perform the mechanical operation because they can do the operation themselves. In fact, many people like roll-under percentile systems like this specifically because they make this kind of efficiency intuitive and almost automatic.)

But there’s actually a problem with this because, if you recall, Eclipse Phase also features difficulties which modify the target number. This disrupts the simple efficiency and we would often end up with discussions like this:

GM: Give me a Navigation check.
Player: I got an excellent success.
GM: There’s actually a difficulty here. What did you roll?
Player: 47.
GM: And what’s your skill?
Player: 50.
GM: Okay, so you actually failed. Here’s what happens…

This creates all kinds of friction at the table: It’s inefficient. It’s frequently confusing. And either the outcome doesn’t change at all (in which case we’ve deflated the drama of the resolution for no reason) or the player is frustrated that an outcome they thought was going one way is actually going the other.

The reason this is happening is because there is an operation that I, as the GM, need to perform (applying a hidden difficulty) but I’m not being given the number I need to perform that operation. The player has learned to throw the ball to a certain spot (“I got an excellent success”), but I’m frequently not standing at that spot and the ball painfully drops to the ground.

What I eventually figured out is that the information I need from the player is actually “XX out of YY” — where XX is the die roll and YY is their skill rating. I could catch that ball and easily carry it wherever it needed to go.

GM: Give me a Navigation check.
Player: I got 47 out of 55.
GM: An excellent success! Here’s what happens…

And I realized that I could literally just tell players that this is what they needed to say to me. I didn’t need to wait for them to figure it out. Even brand new players could almost instantly groove into the system.

ADVANCED D&D

As you spend more time with a system, you’ll frequently find odd corners which require a different flow of information. In some cases you may be able to tweak your table norms to account for the special cases, but usually it’ll be more about learning when and how to cue your players that you all need to handle this information differently (and the players gaining the mastery to be able to quickly grok the new, sometimes overlapping, circumstances).

Let’s go back to D&D, for example.

When I’m a DM and I’ve got a horde of orcs attacking a single PC, it’s not unusual for me to roll all of their attacks at once, roll all of the damage from the successful attacks, add all that damage up, and then report it as a single total to the player. It just makes sense to do a running total of the numbers in front of me as I generate them rather than saying a string of numbers to a player and asking them to process the verbal information while doing the running total themselves.

And, of course, it works just fine… right up until a PC gets damage reduction. Now it’s the player who needs to perform a mechanical operation (subtracting their damage reduction from each hit) and doesn’t have the information they need to do that.

Even PCs with multiple attacks usually resolve them one by one for various reasons, so the reverse (players lumping damage together when the GM needs to apply damage reduction) rarely happens. But two of the PCs in my 3^rd Edition campaign have weapons that deal bonus elemental damage, and they’ve learned that sometimes I need that damage specifically broken out because creatures are frequently resistant against or immune to fire or electricity damage.

When we first started running into this difficulty, the players defaulted to always giving me the elemental damage separately. But this was an unneeded inefficiency, and we quickly figured out that it was easier for me to simply tell them when they needed to give me the elemental damage separately.

These are simple examples, but they hopefully demonstrate that this sort of mastery is not an all-or-nothing affair. There’s almost always room to learn new tricks.

FENG SHUI

Let’s also take a look at one of these systems that’s fairly straightforward in its mechanical operations, but which can become devilishly difficult if you don’t pass information back and forth cleanly.

In Feng Shui 2, the dice mechanic produces a “swerve”: You subtract a negative d6 from a positive d6 in order to generate a bell curve result from -5 to +5. (Sixes actually explode and are rolled again, so the curve is smeared out at the ends, but that’s basically how it works.)

When you want to make an attack, you do two things. First, you check to see if you hit:

Roll Swerve + Attack Skill – Target’s Defense

If you hit, you then calculate damage:

Margin of Success + Weapon Damage – Target’s Toughness

Looking at those two equations on the page, there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly exotic about them. In practice, though, I’ve seen players and entire groups get completely tangled up in them. There tend to be two major problems:

1. The attacker feels as if they should be able to complete one full step of this process and then report the result… except they can’t, because neither step can actually be completed without information that the defender posseses.
2. Upon completing the first step, players want to report a flat success/failure outcome (“I hit”), but if they don’t pass the margin of success to the damage equation they can’t actually calculate damage.

What frequently happens in the latter case is:

GM: The target’s Defense is 17.
Player: (does math) Okay, I hit!
GM: So your damage will be equal to the margin of success plus your weapon damage. What was your margin of success?
Player: Uh… crap. I forgot? Three? Maybe four? Hang on… (does the math again)

Another interesting thing that will happen in this kind of situation is that the players — who don’t like being confused or frustrated! — will try to find ad hoc ways of routing around the problem. In Feng Shui 2, for example, I’ll frequently see players basically say, “Well… I know what this guy’s Defense value is because I attacked him last round. So I’m just going to attack him again to keep it simple.”

The important thing to take away from this is that the players want to solve the problem just as much as you do. But often this kind of ad hoc pseudo-solution just shifts the frustration: They’ve figured out how to make the mechanical resolution flow more smoothly, but they feel trapped by the system into making choices that they don’t necessarily want to make. The insane, over-the-top Hong Kong action of Feng Shui 2, for example, has been compromised as they attack the same guy over and over again.

So let’s say that you find yourself in this situation. How can you fix it?

• Identify the sequence in which mechanical operations must be performed.
• Identify who has the necessary information for each operation.
• Figure out how to pass the information to the necessary person at each stage of the opration.

For example, in Feng Shui 2 who has each piece of information used when resolving an attack?

• Outcome of the swerve roll. (Attacker)
• Attack Skill (Attacker)
• Target’s Defense (Defender)
• Margin of Success (whoever calculated the outcome of the attack roll)
• Weapon Damage (Attacker)
• Target’s Toughness (Defender)
• Wound Points taken (Defender)

If you look back up at the mechanical equations, it should be fairly easy to identify the resolution sequence and the numbers that need to be said:

1. Attacker rolls swerve and adds their attack skill. (The game actually calls this the Action Result.) Attacker tells the Defender this number.
2. Defender subtracts their Defense from the Action Result. (This is the margin of success. The game calls this the Outcome.) Defender tells the Attacker the Outcome.
3. The Attacker adds the Outcome to the Weapon Damage. (The game calls this the Smackdown.) The Attacker tells the Defender the Smackdown.
4. The Defender subtracts their Toughness from the Smackdown. (This is the number of Wound Points they take.)

You can see that Robin D. Laws, being a clever chap, identified the significant chunks of information in the system and gave them specific labels (Action Result, Outcome, Smackdown). Other games won’t necessarily do that for you (and even the Feng Shui 2 rulebook, unfortunately, doesn’t specifically call out how the information should be passed back and forth), but you should be able to break down the mechanical processes in any system in a similar manner.

PIGGYBACKING IN GUMSHOE (AND BEYOND!)

Let me close by talking about a mechanical interaction that has multiple players participating simultaneously (which, of course, makes the “dance” of information more complicated to coordinate).

In the GUMSHOE System (used by games like Ashen Stars and Trail of Cthulhu), some group checks are resolved using a piggybacking mechanic:

• One character is designated the Lead.
• The difficulty of the test is equal to the base difficulty + 2 per additional character “piggybacking” on the Lead’s check.
• Those piggybacking can spend 1 skill point to negate the +2 difficulty they’re adding to the check.

The mechanic is very useful when, for example, you want Aragorn to lead the hobbits through the wilderness without being detected by Ringwraiths: The more unskilled hobbits there are, the more difficult it should be for Aragorn to do that, but you still want success to be governed by Aragorn’s skill at leading the group.

Many moons ago I adapted this piggybacking structure to D20 systems like this:

• One character takes the Lead.
• Other characters can “piggyback” on the Lead’s skill check by making their own skill check at a DC equal to half of the DC of the Lead’s check. (So if the Lead is making a DC 30 check, the piggybackers must make a DC 15 check.)
• The lead character can reduce the Piggyback DC by 1 for every -2 penalty they accept on their check.
• The decision to piggyback on the check must be made before the Lead’s check is made.

On paper, this system made sense. When I put it into practice at the table, however, it wasn’t working out. It seemed complicated, finicky, and the players weren’t enjoying using the mechanic.

I gave up on it for a couple of years, and then came back to it and realized that the problem was that I had been sequencing the mechanic incorrectly. One element of this was actually a slight error in mechanical design, but even this was ultimately about the resolution sequence.

The way the mechanic was being resolved originally was:

• The GM declares that, for example, a Stealth check needs to be made.
• The players decide whether they want to use the Piggyback mechanic for this.
• The GM approves it.
• The players choose a Lead.
• The other players decide whether they want to piggyback or not.
• The Lead chooses whether or not they want to lower the Piggybacking DC.
• The Lead would roll their check.
• If the Lead succeeded, the other players would roll their piggybacking checks. (The logic being that if the Lead failed, there was no need for the piggybacking checks. But, in practice, players would see the Lead’s result and then try to opt out of piggybacking if it was bad.)

Here’s what the actual resolution sequence needed to be:

• The GM declares that there is a piggyback check required.
• The players choose their Lead.
• The other players make their piggybacking checks. If any check fails, the largest margin of failure among all piggybacking characters increases the DC of the Lead’s check by +1 per two points of margin of failure.
• The Lead makes their check.

You can immediately see, just from the number of steps involved, how much more streamlined this resolution process is. The only actual mechanical adjustment, however, is to shift the adjustment of the piggybacking DC from a decision made before the piggybacking checks to an effect of those checks.

The take-away here is that while our passing of mechanical information at the table is often numerical, it can also include other elements (like who’s taking Lead in a piggybacking check) which can also be streamlined and formalized for efficiency.

Go to Part 1

DEVELOPMENTS

These developments can be used flexibly by the GM to model ongoing events at the crater. They might complicate things during the PCs’ operation (for example, the corrupted hab robots attack them). Or they might be used to describe ongoing events for PCs who place the compound under surveillance (for example, security responds to Balthasar’s breach of the Asteroid Dome, perhaps creating an opportunity for the PCs to infiltrate areas left temporarily undefended).

BALTHASAR BREACH:

• The researcher named Balthasar succumbs to the basilisk dreams.
• Balthasar enters the Asteroid Dome, removes the protective glove from this suit, and touches the asteroid. He is rapidly infected by Silver Basilisk.
• A high-security alert is triggered, with security personnel moving into the research spike. (The most likely outcome is that the first people to breach the Asteroid Dome succumb to Balthasar’s Silver Basilisk effect.)
• Another option would be to trigger this event just after the PCs have secured the security feed at the Security HQ. (So they’ve secured the compound, but then everything starts going to hell.)

HAB CORRUPTION:

• Silver Basilisk manages to infect the Sensor AI through an intermittent visual basilisk hack which appears on the surface of the asteroid (and is picked up by the sensors).
• Sensor AI corrupts the hab repair robots, which begin rebuilding the Research Spike in disturbing ways.
• Sensor AI begins trying to hack and corrupt the other AIs.

CARLYLE’S INSANITY IS DISCOVERED

• He attempts to flee across the Martian plains, but is tracked down by the security personnel and then shipped to a mental institution in Pathfinder City for study.
• He remains there for a week before the people assigned conclude there’s nothing more of use that can be gleaned from him; then his ego is wiped and his morph is destroyed.

Go to Part 7: Security Team

(PDF Link: After several failed attempts to get the Security Team stats formatted to appear on the webpage, I’ve decided to throw in the towel and give a PDF version for superior utility. Early Access Patreon backers can also download a PDF of the full adventure, as they can for my other scenarios.)

AREA 5 – HALLWAY / HAZMAT SUITS

Sharp angling of the exterior wall.

HAZMAT SUITS: 12 hazmat suits hang in individual sterilizing chambers.

STAIRWAY: Of a white, gleaming plastic. It can collapse down and become a lift pallet.

AREA 6 – HALLWAY / RESEARCH DRONE STORAGE

Sharp angling of the exterior wall.

RESEARCH AI FORK: The Research AI Fork is running off a server in this room.

DRONES

• HAB REPAIR ROBOTS (x2)
• ROBOMULE

---

HAB REPAIR ROBOT: Crab-like frame. Panopticon, pg. 157.

Walker 4/20 (max 20 kph), Armor 4/4, DUR 40, WT 8

Access Jacks, Chem Sniffer, Electrical Sense, Enhanced Vision, Extra Limbs (6), Grip Pads (+30 Climbing), Headlights, Maker, Nanoscopic Vision, Repair Spray, Tool Kit, Utilitool

AI: Hardware: Industrial 40, Hardware: Robotics 40, Perception 30.

---

ROBOMULE: Human-sized, but horizontal and with six legs. Legs can also transform into flippers for swimming (deploy reusable flotation bladders). Carry 250kg of cargo over long distances.  Upper surface made of smart materials that transform into straps, etc. Gatecrashing, pg. 162.

Walker 4/20 (max 35 kph), Armor 4/4, DUR 40, WT 8

Access Jacks, Extra Limbs (6), Headlights, Maker

---

 

AREA 7 – ACCESS SHAFT

SENSORS: Monitored by the Sensor AI; 40% chance that the feed is also being monitored by a human.

• HYPERSPECTRAL: +20 Perception modifier (Panopticon, pg. 162)
• INFRARED: With active infrared lighting (+10 Perception modifier).
• INFRASOUND: Capable of detect footprints within 20 feet (+30 Perception modifier).
• PRESSURE SENSORS
• QUANTUM RADAR (Active)
• RADIATION SENSE
• T-RAY/X-RAY/GAMMA RAY (Active)
• ULTRAVIOLET
• SPECIAL VISION: Nanoscopic Vision, Polarization Vision

MOVING LADDERS: Four moving ladders spaced around the walls of the shaft. Grabbing onto the runs will cause the ladder to begin moving. (Two ladders go down; the other two go up.) The ladder can also be climbed normally.

AREA 8 – ASTEROID DOME

SENSORS: As per Area 7, but with 80% chance that feed is being monitored by a human.

• CHEM SNIFFER
• GHOST IMAGER (Panopticon, pg. 152)

FLOOR: The floor of the crater itself. A wide pit has been excavated (using scourer nanoswarms), revealing the asteroid which thrusts up out of the ground.

ASTEROID: A multi-faceted prism of silver crystals filling a latticework of silver-black. The lattice is constantly sheened with Silver Basilisk oil.

FRACTAL ARMS (x3): Fractal, mechanical arms extend from the walls. These can divide down to micrometer scale; have enhanced chemical sensor suites; and can release scourer nanoswarms.

• SCOURERS: Analyze the dirt, regolith, ice, etc. in a region and then remove it, layer by layer. Anything not matching that pattern is location tagged and the swarm uses ultrasound to clear the item and clean it. (Gatecrashing, pg. 160)

MANIPULATOR CUFFS (x3): Stored in silver tubes attached to the dome wall.

---

MANIPULATOR CUFFS: Attached as a forearm cuff to the outside of a vacsuit. Utilitool and mobile lab. Controlled through arm movements and mesh signals. Protrudes 2-meter long telescoping manipulator. Can bend, flex, and squeeze through openings only 2mm wide. Can also detach and move under its own power (using flexible treads). Feels like an extension of the user’s hand. (Gatecrashing, pg. 160)

Tracked 2/8 (max 8 kph), DUR 5, WT 1

Access Jacks, Electrical Sense, Enhanced Vision, Fractal Digits, Grip Pads (+30 Climbing), Mobile Lab, Nanoscopic Vision, Shape Adjusting, Telescoping Limb, Utilitool

---

Go to Part 6: Developments

Go to Part 1

(150 meters wide)

EXTERIOR

• Building is on 10-foot high stabilizing stilts.
• Mostly made out of white plasteel. The windows are clear plastic with protective metal blinds on the outside.
• Bundles of cable run from the Research Hab around the perimeter of the crater to the Security HQ.
  • These contain hardwired camera and communication feeds.

SURVEILLANCE

• Every room including the private quarters are monitored with standard audio/video feeds. The sensory feeds are hardwired to the Security HQ.
• Chemical sniffers and radiation detectors in the labs (areas 5-12).

AREA 1 – CENTRAL CORRIDOR

Generally only the door facing the crater is used. (The building is prefabbed.)

AREA 2 – MESS

Cheap, one-piece plastic chairs and tables secured to the floor using solid adhesives.

The fabber here has broken down. Canned goods are being fabricated in the Security HQ and then carried over here.

AREA 3 – RESEARCHER QUARTERS

For security purposes, these chambers are kept extremely depersonalized. (Security monitors this using the sensory feeds.)

AREA 4 – CARLYLE’S QUARTERS

The security feed for Carlyle’s quarters have been compromised: Carlyle’s muse is feeding false data to make everything appear normal.

BED: The bed is affixed to the ceiling. (Carlyle melted the solid adhesive bonding it to the floor and then secured it to the ceiling.)

• A nest of bedding has been huddled up on the floor beneath the bed.

TABLE: A table has been magnetically attached to the wall. The surface of the table is covered in a multi-colored mélange of scrawled symbols and diagrams.

• UNDER THE TABLE: If the table is removed from the wall, a tiny diorama will be found glued to the wall in the hollow space beneath the table’s central pillar. The diorama is a replica of the asteroid dome (area 8 of the Research Spike), including, most notably, a replica of the crystal-like extrusion which appears to be smeared with blood.
• SCRAWLS: If each color of ink is separately extrapolated as a layer of data, they are revealed to be star charts. Specifically, they are constellations as viewed from the Martian sky directly above the Research Spike, with each layer of color representing an epoch of time progressively farther in the past. (Starting 50,000 years ago and increasing to 500,000,000 years.)

AREA 5 – LAB SECURITY CHAMBER

BRAINSCANNING: Access to the labs requires identification verification using a portable brainscanner (Panopticon, pg. 152). A set of six chairs line the room, allowing an entire lab team to be processed simultaneously.

• This process is monitored by the Research AI.

HAZMAT SUITS: 12 hazmat suits hang in individual sterilizing chambers.

AREA 6 – SAMPLE STORAGE

This room contains a number of freezers and shelving units with individual components formed from self-sealing smart materials.

• Usually used for storing scientific samples, but the only samples currently being held here are a number of soil samples extracted from the surrounding terrain.
• Most of the storage space is going unused.

BURN UNIT: The room also contains a sterilizing burn unit suitable for destroying toxic or dangerous materials.

• This unit vents to a containment unit which can either be sealed and removed or vented to the outside atmosphere.

AREA 7 – GENERAL LAB

Fully-stocked laboratory suitable for general scientific study, but it’s going essentially unused on the current project.

RESEARCH AI: Research AI is running off a server in this room.

AREA 8 – DECONTAMINATION CHAMBER

The full decontamination process takes 2 minutes.

STEP 1: NANODETECTORS: In the ceiling, suck air out of the chamber for analysis.

STEP 2: DECONTAMINATION MIST: To unprotected biomorphs, this acts as a toxin that causes eye irritation and difficulty breathing. 1d10 damage, -30 modifier to sight-based Perception tests, and a -20 modifier to all other actions.

STEP 3: NANOSWARM – MICROBIAL CLEANERS: Released into the room.

AREA 9 – SUPPLIES

This room contains supplies for the laboratories. It notably includes:

• Nanodetectors
• Nanoswarm – Scientific Nanoanalyzer
  • Specifically designed to analyze compounds down to a molecular level.
• Nanoswarm – Cleaner
• Specimen Containers

AREA 10 – SOIL LAB

SAMPLES: The samples have been carefully tagged with the GPS locations where they were picked up (mostly from within the crater, but also samples up to 3 km away from the crater).

REPORTS: Stored on the local servers.

• No foreign matter was found in the ejecta, which would suggest that whatever impacted in the crater didn’t vaporize or suffer structural disintegration of any kind. (This is extremely unusual for an impact crater.)
• The 3D map of the asteroid dome (area 8, Research Spike) prepared by the scourer nanoswarms is on file here.

AREA 11 – BIOCHEMICAL LAB

WORK: The primary work here was an effort to replicate and map the DNA traces from the silver-black oil taken from the asteroid.

SILVER BASILISK SAMPLE: A small sample of Silver Basilisk in a diamond-crystal faraday container is kept in the lab’s sample case.

• FARADAY CONTAINER: Gatecrashing, pg. 160. Superconductive charged wires block radio signals, electrical charges, and electromagnetic radiation from getting in or out.

SHREDDED BASILISK: In order to study the complex, interlaced DNA of Silver Basilisk, the researchers have ripped it apart using terahertz lasers and are attempting to individually cultivate the DNA strands. “Shredded basilisk”, however, remains highly toxic due to the fractal nature of the exsurgent virus (which will attempt to reconstitute itself).

• Anyone exposed to shredded basilisk must make a DUR test (DUR x 4 if they have medichines or toxin filters). If they fail, there’s a 10% chance they’re affected as per second generation Silver Basilisk as the shredded basilisk migrates to the brain.
• Otherwise, shredded baslisk inflicts a -5 modifier to COO, REF, and COG per week while simultaneously making the victim suffer extreme hallucinations and act as a focal point for Basilisk Dreams. Half this damage is dealt permanently to the ego (even if it resleeves). If any aptitudes are reduced to zero, the morph is effectively paralyzed and catatonic.

AREA 12 – BIOINFORMATICS LAB

WORK: This lab is using biological data analysis techniques to study the interactions, functions, and properties of the X-91 oil.

TISSUE SAMPLES: They’ve infected three major sequences of stem-cell-derived microbiological tissue with X-91 oil. (Each sequence consists of thousands of closely related samples that have had their DNA altered only slightly one from the next in an effort to analyze variant interactions with the oil.)

• All of these are potential infection vectors for Silver Basilisk (although a character can make a DUR test or a DUR x 3 test if they have medichines or toxin filters).

SECURITY MONITOR: This room has access to the surveillance feeds from the asteroid dome (Research Spike, area 8).

• This allows the researchers to remotely observe and study the X-91 asteroid.

REPORTS: Stored on the local servers.

• The X-91 oil appears to use a partially synthetic cell structure featuring incredibly complicated systems of intracellular communication using a protean peptide (which is constantly changing its shape and apparent function according to principles and stimuli that the researchers have been unable to fully identify).
• There are macro-level reactions in the “anomalous large cells” of the X-91 structure which appear to be in reaction to the presence and proximity of specific individuals. This has made isolating micro-interactions difficult.
• Instructions have been prepared to begin testing on animal subjects when their work moves to a larger facility.

 Go to Part 5: Research Spike

Go to Part 1

(120 meters wide)

EXTERIOR

• The bulk of Security HQ is on 10-foot high stabilizing stilts, with the exception of the garage (area 1).
• Mostly made out of white plasteel. The windows are silvered from the outside (but anyone inside can look out).
• Bundles of cable run from the Security HQ to the Research Spike and around the perimeter of the crater to the Research Hab. These contain hardwired camera and communication feeds.

AREA 1 – GARAGE

VEHICLES:

• Flying Car (Security Model) – Sunward, pg. 170
• Martian Trike (x2) – Sunward, pg. 170
• Hyperdense Exoskeleton – Eclipse Phase, pg. 344
• Maintenance berths for two flying serpents (see pg. 6).

AREA 2 – ENTRY

FABBERS (x2)

WEAPONS RACK

• Sniper Rifle (x2) (AP -12, DV 2d10+5 – SA – 12 reactive armor-piercing ammo – safety system, smartlink)
  • Also has bug ammo (EP, pg. 337)
  • Smartlink (EP, pg. 342): +10 attack test, microcamera, shoot around corner, control which ammo is being shot.
• Automatic Rail Rifle (x12) (AP -9, DV 2d10+8 – SA, BF, FA – 30 ammo – safety system, smartlink)
• Medium Rail Pistol (x12) (AP -5, DV 2d10+4 – SA, BF, FA – 12 ammo – safety system, smartlink)
• Shock Batons (x12) (DV 1d10+3+shock)
• Heavy Body Armor (x12) (armor 20/18, ablative patches, full helmet, shock proof)
  • Ablative Patches (EP, pg. 313): +4/+2 armor, reduce by 1 per hit
  • Shock Proof (EP, pg. 313): +10 bonus when resisting shock attacks

AREA 3 – LOUNGE

Chairs, tables, food fabbers

AREA 4 – SECURE ROOM

FEEDS: This room contains the hardwired security feeds from the Research Hab and Research Spike. It also processes the wireless feeds from the Security Perimeter.

DISPLAYS: By default, the security feeds are only available via the “silver snakes” which biometrically-validated users can attach to their skin. The feeds are then delivered as AR entoptics via a skinlink.

SECURITY AI: The security AI for the complex is housed in a server in this room. It has the ability to wirelessly broadcast the security feeds, but will generally try not to do that for security reasons.

• Performs a security handshake with the Research AI once per hour.

AREA 5 – BARRACKS

Bunks for six.

DREAMLOGGER: One of the pillows is Dominic’s Dreamlogger, designed to record a person’s dreams while they sleep.

• ACCESSING: Requires bypassing a firewall; Infosec test (-20). The data is essentially an XP recording and must be either experienced or processed into a visual feed (which would require additional tests).
• CONTENTS: Roughly six days after coming onsite, Dominic begins experiencing increasingly disturbing dreams (see Basilisk Dreams, pg. 4).

AREA 6 – BARRACKS

Bunks for six.

AREA 7 – BATHROOM

With a feed line to the fabbers in area 3.

Go to Part 4: Research Hab