If you asked me to describe the combat system of Mothership in one word, it would be a toss-up between “strange” and “missing.”

What seems to have happened is that Mothership 0e had a turn-based initiative system. A decision was made at some point to transition Mothership 1e to a more freeform(?) resolution system, but the execution was pretty badly muffed. (It may have also been further complicated by a last minute attempt to revert back to the 0e version of the rules.)

The result is that the rules and examples of play contradict each other, and support material — including stat blocks and adventures — don’t seem to be in sync with the mechanics. To attempt to give a taste of what the confusion in the rulebooks looks like:

• The Violent Encounters chapter in the Player’s Survival Guide suggests a player-facing system, in which PCs make all the checks.
• The example of play is also player-facing, but doesn’t follow the same procedure.
• In the Warden’s Operations Manual, however, player-facing is described as an alternative to the normal combat system. (But, if so, what’s the normal combat system?)
• Meanwhile, all the horrors in Unconfirmed Contact Reports have Combat stats that are designed to be rolled to determine damage… except what function is that supposed to serve if the players are supposed to be making all the checks?

Sean McCoy, the designer, has said that rules-as-written is supposed to be that the monster takes a turn and rolls Combat checks, although he prefers the player-facing option “90% of the time.” And on the Mothership Discord he’s mused about how the Combat stat should be interpreted (“my guideline would be: monsters with 60+ Combat impose [-] on player facing rolls, and monsters with Combat below 20 impose [+] on player facing rolls”).

From what I can tell, the result is that there are three major options for combat in Mothership:

1. Everybody takes a turn, including the monster(s), with the monsters rolling Combat.
2. At the beginning of a round, the GM threatens Harm (to use the parlance of Apocalypse World) and that Harm (e.g., damage) is inflicted if the PCs fail to prevent it with their checks during the round.
3. Monster damage can be inflicted as a consequence for any failed roll by the players. (Possibly resulting in the monster “attacking” multiple times per round.)

This uncertainty has also led to nigh-infinite variation in actual practice, most of which can be characterized as GMs filling the howling vacuum with whatever combat procedures they can nick from other RPGs they’ve played.

(Honestly, you can even see this in my own interpretation of Mothership’s examples of play through the lens of Apocalypse World terminology.)

The most charitable interpretation of all this is that the intention is for the GM to just kind of fluidly move back and forth between these options at their whim. (Or, if you like, in accordance to their sense of “dramatic timing.”) But the difference in outcome is clearly so radically different that it becomes meaningless for the players to even pretend that they have true agency.

Of course, this also affects adventure design. When the combat system is lost in time and space, it’s impossible to actually dial in difficulty. You can arguably see this in Another Bug Hunt, the adventure bundled with the core rules, where the carcinid monsters fluctuate between “one is a nearly unstoppable killing machine” to “actually, y’all can take out a dozen of them with no problem” and than back to “oh no! there’s three of them! y’all gotta run!” (Although, again, it’s possible the intention is for the GM to just enforce whatever “vibe” the current scene has been scripted to have.)

EVERYBODY TAKES A TURN

If you go with Option #1, you’ll need to add an initiative system. Mothership 0e used Speed checks:

• Success, you go before the bad guys.
• Failure, you go after the bad guys.
• Critical Success, you get an extra action.
• Critical Failure, you can move OR take an action, but not both.

That works well enough, although you’ll need to decide whether to check each round or just once at the beginning of combat. (And, if so, how long the effects of Critical Success and Critical Failure results last.)

The advantage of this approach is that it likely cuts through all this folderol. It’s clear-cut and it will be very obvious to you which sections of the rulebook you should simply ignore.

Other simple options could include:

• Bad guys always go first.
• PCs always go first (in any order), unless Bad Guys ambush them or seize advantage with an Instinct check.
• Go around the table, with bad guys acting when it’s the Warden’s turn.
• Go around the table to resolve PC actions. The Warden can choose to have a bad guy take their turn before or after any PC’s turn.

MY EXPERIENCE AT THE TABLE

I’m a cuss-headed fellow, though, so I’ve been trying to grapple with the player-facing vision imperfectly presented in the Player’s Survival Guide, which I think can be broadly summed up as:

1. GM threatens Harm. (Again, using an Apocalypse World term of art.)
2. Players declare actions by going around the table.
3. GM makes rulings for how actions are resolved.
4. Players all roll dice (if necessary) simultaneously.

Unfortunately, after running Mothership for a few sessions, the results have not been particularly satisfying. Partly there’s been limited combat and, therefore, limited opportunities for me to experiment, but also:

First, without specificity locking things down, the system is mixing poorly with my default GM stance of letting the PCs set an agenda and then playing to see what happens when they try to make it work. I need to work on setting stronger, clearer Threats and really focus on, “Did the PCs stop the Threat? If not, devastate.”

Second, I’ve still been trying to figure out how to incorporate the Combat/Instinct stats for the critters. Having the creatures make rolls to resolve actions seems to only water down the Threats even more, so it’s not working. It’s just fundamentally problematic that the entire mechanical chassis for horrors in Mothership is incompatible with the combat procedures described in the Player’s Survival Guide.

Third, I’ve been running an open table and my players have rolled random loadouts that include Advanced Battle Dress (AP 10, DR 3) and the 1d100 DMG laser cutter. This isn’t a problem, per se, but in combination with the adventures I’ve been running — which have been slow burning explorations of creepy environments, and then GAH! CREATURE FIGHT! — I’m cognizant that this is likely warping my limited experience with Mothership combat.

Fourth, overall the fights have been thrilling and the players have been immensely enjoying them, but I’m mostly faking it with vibes and panache. This isn’t great for me as a GM because I really, really don’t like killing PCs through acts of capricious fiat. Since the whole combat system feels like a towering edifice of fiat right now, my gut instinct is making me pull my punches when it comes to lethal consequences, and in the long-term that’s really going to hamper a horror game like Mothership.

So my next step at this point is to get a little more specific in how I’m structuring this. That’ll likely give me a bit more clarity when I’m actually running the game, and if I’m at least in the ballpark I should be able to iterate through playtesting. (And, if  not, then at least I’ll know that and be able to toss all this in the burn pit and start over.)

Let’s take a peek at what I’m currently thinking.

THE THREAT SYSTEM

The core combat loop for Mothership is:

• GM makes a Threat.
• PCs declare and resolve actions.
• GM resolves Threat and sets a new Threat.

When making a Threat, the GM should default to devastating consequences.

COUNTERING THREAT: If the PCs’ actions during the round don’t counter or block the Threat, then the Threat is resolved. (You may also have situations where threat is mitigated and only some of the original Threat goes into effect.)

RESOLVING CHECKS: When the PCs fail a check, there should be consequences. Depending on circumstances, those consequences might include the creature automatically dealing damage; making a Combat check to inflict damage; or gaining the Edge (see below).

HORROR THREATS

The Threat from a horror should almost always include one automatic hit for damage. To this, add one (or more) of the following chasers:

• Special Ability: The creature gets to use its special ability (e.g., sucks blood, implants larvae, infects with lycanthropy).
• Ravage: After dealing their automatic damage to a target, the creature can make a Combat check to inflict an additional attack of damage.
• Multiple Targets: Instead of automatically damaging one target, the horror automatically hits multiple targets (e.g., it charges down a hallway smashing through or slicing up anyone within reach; tentacles burst out of the amorphous blob, hitting everyone in Close range; there are multiple creatures and they’re all hitting different targets).
• Trap: One or more PCs become trapped (e.g., the monster is pinning them to the ground; backed them into a corner; etc.).
• Environmental Complication: In addition to the horror, the PCs also need to deal with some other crisis in the environment (e.g., the hull has been punctured and air is rushing out; the blast doors are lowering, threatening to trap them with the creature; the timer on the bomb is ticking down).
• Slaughter the Innocent: The horror takes out one or more screaming bystanders or similar extras in the scene. (This shouldn’t include significant members of the supporting cast, who should be targeted like PCs.)
• Escalate: See below.

Specific creatures or situations may, of course, suggest other chasers. The list above is just a useful set of defaults.

EDGE

As an advanced option, consider the tactical position/momentum of the fight. We’ll refer to the side which currently has tactical advantage as having the Edge. By default, you can assume the horror starts with the Edge in the fight unless circumstances suggest otherwise (e.g., the PCs have managed to ambush it). Of course, in addition to blocking the horror’s Threat, the PCs may also be able to take actions that give them the Edge.

If the horror has the Edge, it can make a full Threat as described above (i.e., damage + a chaser of additional nastiness).

If the PCs have the Edge, then the horror’s Threat options, depending on circumstances, will be limited to one of the following:

• Make a Combat check in order to deal damage/use a special ability.
• Regain its Edge in the fight.
• Withdraw. (It will be back later, once again likely defaulting to having the Edge.)

For example, one of the PCs manages to pin a zombie to the floor. They now have the Edge on the zombie. Withdrawal isn’t an option (since it’s pinned to the floor), but the zombie could either try to escape the pin (regaining the Edge so that it can make a full Threat on the next turn) or try to deal damage to the character pinning them.

It may often be useful to think of the tactical Edge as a thing that has to be actively maintained by the PCs (e.g., the PC pinning the zombie to the ground has to keep making Strength checks each round to hold it down). No resting on your laurels!

Note: You don’t have to think of Edge as a super formal thing. It probably isn’t a player-known structure. (Although, for some players, knowing about it may encourage tactical creativity.) But it can be a nice mental model for the GM to have so that combats have a satisfying back-and-forth pacing and the PCs’ actions feel like they have meaningful consequences.

ESCALATION

You can expand on the binary concept of Edge by simply extending the concept in both directions.

If the horror has the Edge, it can escalate (e.g. by getting into a better position; charging up its super-weapon; summoning reinforcements; etc.). For each escalation, you can add another chaser to the Threat each round.

If the PCs have the Edge, they’re in a position to potentially

• withdraw;
• isolate the threat;
• force the horror to make its checks with disadvantage;

or otherwise prevent the horror from directly assaulting them.

You may find it useful to think of escalation in terms of vectors. For example:

• The alien can’t attack you right now because the door is blocking it. Can you stop the alien from getting through (or around) the door?
• Okay, it got through the door, so now it’s in the room with you and is threatening harm. Can you escape/kill it first/whatever?

Or:

• It’s trying to take out your tires.
• It’s taken out your tires, can you keep control of the vehicle?
• You’ve crashed and now the alien has jumped on top of the vehicle. It can easily strike anyone who gets out, and its serrated tail starts spiking down through the sheet metal and into the compartment.

A generic progression along these lines is:

• It’s trying to get to a position where it can hurt you.
• It can hurt one of you.
• It can hurt all of you.

You can also think of this in terms of setup and payoff: On the level of a single round you set things up by Threatening an outcome at the beginning of the round; then you pay off that Threat (by either fulfilling it or thwarting it) at the end of the round. Escalation just extends this same concept, with the resolution of this round’s Threat setting up an even bigger payoff (for either the PCs or their opponents) in the next round!

Go to Part 1

[C: 70 Claws 2D10 DMG, I:50, W: 3(20), Pseudomilk Suck: After hit or vs. disabled android, Body save [-] or 4D10 DMG per round, Strength check to detach ]

On the jungle world of Kikkomari V, the milk-white sap of the cream-leaved kikkan palm trees had a significant bio-similarity to the pseudomilk “blood” of androids. (In both cases, the liquid served as a nutrient conveyor and an electrical conduit. In androids, this conductivity enhances the response of cybernetic bio-tissue, while in the kikkan palm it was a pest deterrent.)

While Dr. Skithar’s report on kikkan sap offers several tantalizing avenues of patentable exploitation – most notably the antigen TK cells and the albino fibrin cells which could potentially improve android self-repair functions – no clear case has been made for why these studies could not continue from lab-grown samples.

Therefore her request to expand the ecological preservation zone is DENIED.

See attached recommendations for expanded funding of the Prista Research Center.

Salem-Watts Corporate Directive
Kikkomari V

The kikkan palm existed in a semi-symbiotic relationship with the sapdrillers. The sapdrillers had long proboscises tipped with a curious “auger” structure consisting of a hard-tipped bony mass that could be rapidly pounded through a muscular spasm into the soft wood of the palm tree. In addition to drinking the sap of the trees, the sapdrillers would also eat various parasites that might otherwise kill the trees.

When the kikkan jungles were clearcut to make way for vast, corporate-owned android plantations, the sapdriller habitats were destroyed. They were, however, just one of many species caught in the middle of a mass extinction event well-catalogued by the planetary ecologists.

The sapdrillers, however, discovered that they had access to another abundant food source: The android plantation workers. Rapid evolutionary pressure transformed the sapdrinkers on Kikkomari V into the seivant diabo.

Seivant devils are ambush predators capable of short bursts of terrifying speed. Long, razor-sharp claws can disable androids, while their whip-like proboscis can lock onto a victim and then punch through flesh (and even light armor). Once attached, they’ll begin sucking up precious pseudomilk.

Excerpt: TSCS Law Enforcement Briefing Transcript

Ofc. Banks: The big brains tell me that “invasive species” isn’t the correct term because LX-510 doesn’t have a “natural biosphere” to disrupt, but I don’t know what else to call it.

We’ve traced the original source of the diabos to the Wittgenstein cartel. When they took down Herr Wittgenstein, no one thought to secure his private menagerie. Most everything else has been tracked down, but the milk-suckers are damn elusive. Worse yet, we’ve found at least one cache of their gelatinous eggs stuck under a toilet in Sector 4F. So there’s really no way to know how many of them are crawling around in the walls now.

In addition to enjoying a brief fad among rare animal collectors, there have been efforts by several mercenary companies and corporate security forces to train and  domesticate seivant devils as an anti-android deterrent. The earliest examples were among the plantation security forces on Kikkomari V, where the seivant devils proved particularly adapt at tracking errant androids via scent.

For better of worse, this has led to seivant devils spreading to multiple worlds, their expansion seemingly only limited by the availability of their preferred prey.

Go to Part 1

PIECE BY PIECE

In the Daedalus Robotics Lab, a haunted screwdriver curses anyone touching it to begin disassembling the world… starting with people.

Writing out the premise of Piece by Piece in such plain terms might make it sound a little goofy, but in practice this adventure works really well. The Daedalus Lab is a well-structured location crawl stocked with clues that can unravel a decade-old mystery. A well-rounded cast of NPCs fleshes the whole thing out with some nice character moments and emotional stakes (and gives you some raw meat to target when the shit hits the fan).

The only real weakpoint here is the scenario hook, which looks like this:

The Daedalus Robotics Lab is in lockdown after personnel were fatally compromised in a random incident. Reports are linking the events to a work tool found at the scene, now classified as Artifact 21. Further details are undisclosed.

Daedalus Robotics Lab’s parent company, Jensen-Hung, is excited to offer an attractive opportunity to any self-motivated freelancers in the sector! Taking on the important role of Temporary Maintenance Crew, contractees are tasked with retrieving Artifact 21 for analysis. Caution is advised; discretion is enforced.

Your crew must investigate the lab, identify ARTIFACT 21 and retrieve it.

At first glance, this all seems fine. Unfortunately, that’s part of the problem because it will lure you into a false sense of security. In reality, there are multiple layers of problems here:

• Given the facts presented in the rest of the module, Jensen-Hung should know that “Artifact 21” is the screwdriver. So why are they asking the PCs to identify it?
• If Jensen-Hung owns Daedalus, why are the PCs being sent in undercover as a maintenance crew?
• The hook suggests that Jensen-Hung was notified of what happened (by an android named Curtis), resolved to retrieve “Artifact 21,” put up a job posting, waited for the PCs to respond to it, hired the PCs, and then sent the PCs to the lab. But both the current situation at Daedalus Robotics Lab and the timeline of events provided by the adventure makes it clear that Curtis’ call to Jensen-Hung actually happened maybe fifteen minutes ago.

These issues — particularly with the timeline — caused a lot of headaches for me the first time I ran the adventure. The players really struggled to figure out the timeline (and, therefore, the mysteries connected to that timeline) because they immediately realized that it didn’t make any sense.

As written, I give Piece by Piece a C+ (okay, with some nice bits). But it’s a B (recommended) or B+ experience if you make a couple simple tweaks:

• I would avoid telling the PCs that an item is responsible for the incident. It really weakens the sense of enigma about what’s happening onsite. (It will also likely cheapen the ending.)
• The timeline is weird because there’s no meaningful gap between Curtis calling Jensen-Hung and the events that are happening when the PCs show up; but obviously there must be a gap of time in which Jensen-Hung contacts the PCs and hires them. Shorten the latter by having Jensen-Hung reach out to the PCs (instead of posting an open ad). Lean into the former by creating a gap: Curtis called Jensen-Hung and was instructed to download all the research data and then wait for extraction. So he did that and then, as described in the adventure, went to the Lobby and met with Dr. Ojo, who is now repairing the minor injury he received. (I would also skip the bit where Curtis supposedly told Ojo that Martina was brutally murdered, but then Ojo just doesn’t do anything about that… because that’s also weird.)

And that should get you sorted.

It might also be useful to note that, if the PCs realize that the screwdriver is responsible, then the finale of the adventure will likely resolve very easily as they all make a point of not touching it. This works well if it’s earned; less so if that knowledge is just handed to them. You really want the finale to be various people getting possessed by the screwdriver and creating chaos, and it’s even better if that includes the PCs.

(Along these same lines, I encourage you to have a PC who gets stabbed by the screwdriver have it get stuck in their shoulder. This will create a natural vector for someone to grab it and pull it out.)

But I digress!

As noted, I recommend this adventure, particularly with the tweaked hook. DG Chapman provides a very satisfying experience at the table.

GRADE: B-

TERMINAL DELAYS AT ANARENE’S FOLLY

The centerpiece of Terminal Delays at Anarene’s Folly is the Creation Device — a cheap knockoff loving homage to the Genesis Device from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, capable of rapidly terraforming an entire planet. (Which is, if you think about it, quite horrific from a certain point of view.)

Unbeknownst to the PCs, the Creation Device is currently in their ship’s hold, concealed in the false bottom of a crate of hydroponics equipment that they’ve been hired to deliver. When they arrive at the space station Anarene’s Folly to refuel, however, the station personnel either know or discover that they have the Creation Device and mount an operation to steal it. It’s time for a reverse heist!

I’ve actually found this to be a tough adventure to review. I like the concept, and Ian Yusem’s execution includes a lot of realty nice material. But for some reason, I just can’t seem to get the whole thing to gel.

Here’s an example of what I mean: The core structure of Anarene’s Folly is the Station Escalation Timeline. This consists of seven numbered steps, and the idea is that you trigger one step for every twenty minutes of real time at the table. But the first two steps are:

1. The PCs are hailed by dock control and told there’s a wait time before they can dock.
2. The PCs are asked to transfer control of their ship to the station AI. (And then the AI begins hacking the ship’s computer, initiating the complementary Systems Hack Timeline.)

On the one hand, this makes sense. On the other hand, what actually happens in the twenty minutes between Step 1 and Step 2?

Anarene’s Folly does give you a roleplaying profile for Simon Wainwright, the Space Traffic Controller, and a Small Talk Table to provide raw fodder for that conversation. I’m looking at that and it just seems interminable.

And it feels like the Station Escalation Timeline, the Systems Hack Timeline, the Gaslighting Table, and the Marine Kill Team Tactical Plan are all modeled as independent, modular components so that they can interface dynamically in actual play…

… but it doesn’t seem like they actually do? The central Station Escalation Timeline is a long slow burn, triggering the Systems Hack Timeline, which has a slow burn of its own until the station AI gets to the point where it can start triggering the Gaslighting Table, which consists of various fake malfunctions and false alarms. These aren’t really independent variables; they’re all linked in chain (although each can be hypothetically disrupted separately).

So you’ve got the PCs running around doing random chores, and maybe at some point they get suspicious and maybe that’s meant to mix things up? But then you start looking at the “flexible” tools that you can use to respond to the PCs, and it seems like they aren’t actually that flexible. If they’re disrupted, the timelines mostly just break. Plus, the PCs don’t seem to have any real options because there’s no clear vector by which they can figure out that the Creation Device is in their hold, plus you’re supposed to kinda railroad them into Anarene’s Folly without enough fuel to reach another station. And then there’s some weird and unexplained stuff. (At one point, for example, Anarene’s Folly abruptly evacuates all nonessential personnel from the station for no discernible reason.)

So, as I say, it feels like Anarene’s Folly is well-stocked with cool tools for running a flexible adventure that responds dynamically to the PCs’ actions. Maybe it is and I’m just missing something. But I just can’t quite seem to grok this one.

GRADE: C

THE HAUNTING OF YPSILON 14

The Haunting of Ypsilon 14 is set on an asteroid where miners have accidentally woken up an alien who was resting in suspended animation. The alien is hostile (of course!) and mayhem ensues!

The first thing you’ll note about the adventure is that it presents the mining base as a flowchart, unifying key and map together rather than a more literal depiction. This largely works, although some unkeyed map symbols may leave you scratching your head.

DG Chapman does several things that elevate this above a simple evening of “there’s an invisible alien eating people” affair.

First, the design of the station is very satisfying. There’s a variety of environments and the areas have been spiked with lots of little fun easter eggs and clues that reward exploration.

Second, Chapman has again included a robust supporting cast. Their details can be a little sketchy, but in practice they develop well in actual play.

Third, in addition to the alien monster, there’s also the Yellow Goo: A medical nanotechnology that heals aliens, but interprets human bodies as being very, very sick and in need of “curing.” This adds a second vector to the scenario’s horror, helping to mix things up and keep it fresh.

Once again, the weak point here is the scenario hook, which is a little shallow and can cause PCs to kind of skim off the surface of the adventure instead of really diving in. (I’ve written a separate article on How to Prep: The Haunting of Ypsilon 14 that you may find useful here.) This is balanced, however, by the supreme ease with which this module can be slid into any Mothership campaign or framed up as the perfect introductory module.

A lot of Mothership GMs will tell you they got started by running The Haunting of Ypsilon 14, and there’s a good reason for that: This is just a rock solid adventure. Easy to run. Easy to enjoy.

GRADE: B

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

These trifold adventures are Mothership’s secret weapon, and in large part their strength is collective: None of them are the greatest adventure you’ve ever seen, but they are consistently good. They also do a good job of showcasing the breadth of what Mothership is capable of.

Individually, therefore, each is pretty good and I recommend all but one of them. As a collection, on the other hand, I find that they demand my attention and insist that I run them as part of a Mothership campaign as soon as possible.

Which I will be more than happy to do.

A guide to grades at the Alexandrian.

The adventure support for Mothership is out of this world.

(Pun intended.)

Mothership is a sci-fi horror RPG, inspired by films like Alien, The Thing, Annihilation, and Event Horizon. It takes a lot of inspiration from the Old School Renaissance, but it also pulls in a lot of new-fangled ideas from games like Apocalypse World.  The result is a fast-paced, high-octane system that can somehow support both high body count slaughterfests and deep, long-term campaign play.

What I want to focus on right now are the plethora of trifold modules available for Mothership. Each of these is just two pages long – printed on two sides of a single sheet of paper and designed to fold up into a trifold pamphlet.

These are similar to One Page Dungeons and Monte Cook Games’ Instant Adventures. The intention is that the GM can grab one of these, read through it in just ten to fifteen minutes, and then immediately run it. They make it so that playing an RPG can be a spur-of-the-moment decision, no different than grabbing a board game.

And Mothership is an ideal game for this type of adventure support because character creation is lightning fast. You can take a group of complete newbies, teach them the rules, and have them roll up their characters in ten minutes or less.

Whether you’re looking for something to on a rainy day; need a pickup session because a player canceled at the last minute; or just burned out on elaborate campaign prep and looking for something simple to run, these trifold adventures are a godsend.

This review is going to cover all of the first-party trifold adventures released by Tuesday Knight Games. Most or all of these exist in two forms: A 0E version designed for use with the original, “pre-release” version of Mothership, and an updated 1E version compatible with the boxed set. (I’m reviewing the current 1E versions.) Each is available in both PDF and physical formats.

Before we get started, let me share a couple of notes on potential biases here.

First, I got my copies of these adventures as a backer of the Mothership Kickstarter campaign. So I paid for them, but they did kind of feel like cool bonus content. With that being said, I will be trying to judge them with an eye towards what it would cost for you to buy them ($5).

Second, I’m planning to run Mothership as an open table. The primary reason for this is because the trifold adventures are so ideal for an open table – just grab one and run it for whatever group shows up each night – but it does mean that as I’m reading, evaluating, prepping, and running them, I’m definitely thinking about how they can fit into that open table.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

CHROMATIC TRANSFERENCE

Our first adventure, Chromatic Transference, is a riff on H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space,” but venue-shifted to an abandoned secret laboratory built inside an asteroid.

I’m a big fan of “The Colour Out of Space” (see my own The Many Colours Out of Space), so this is right up my alley. Reece Carter makes the most of their material, presenting a delightfully creepy nine-room location crawl coupled to an excellent treatment of the strange colour and its mind-rending / body-altering effects. (It’s notably well-integrated with the mechanics of Mothership and also gives the GM excellent support for responding to PCs attempting a scientific inquiry into the colour.)

The only real weak point of Chromatic Transference is that it’s lacking any kind of scenario hook. Given the strong, iconic nature of the premise, though, you shouldn’t find it terribly difficult to brainstorm some options:

• The PCs are hired by the Corporation. They recently bought out a smaller company and, while sorting through the assets, discovered records of an abandoned research base. They’d like the PCs to go check it out. (Maybe accompanied by a corporate assessor?)
• The ship’s sensors detect the dormant docking bay of the asteroid base while the PCs are on a cargo run… do they want to go check it out?
• While sorting through a mass of data they pulled out of Aerodyne’s computers, they stumble across references to the asteroid research facility.
• They’re trying to track down Dr. Everton, who’s been missing for several years. They finally find records indicating that he was sent to a top secret research facility built into an asteroid.

However you decide to use it, the quiet horror of Chromatic Transference makes it a perfect pace-change from blood-drenched bug hunts, while the high stakes risks of allowing the colour to escape the facility – which the PCs may only figure out after it’s too late – ensure that the adventure will be a memorable one.

GRADE: B+

CRYONAMBULISM

A microbial parasite has infected the ship’s cryopods, trapping the PCs in a nightmare-infused hypersleep.

Things begin with the PCs “waking up” at the “end” of their journey. The nightmare version of their ship that they end up exploring is very smartly presented in a modular system that makes it easy to swap out rooms on whatever ship the PCs might be traveling on.

The core gimmick of the adventure – by which the PCs “wake up” one sense at a time (so that, for example, their eyes might be seeing the real world while their ears are still hearing the nightmare; or vice versa) – is a brilliant twist, elevating the kaleidoscopic action to a whole new level. (While also proving a very unique challenge to actually run.) The melding of real world and nightmare world also keeps all of the PCs involved in the action.

Ian Yusem also does a good job of considering how android PCs fit into the scenario’s biological threat. (For a game where Android is one of the four core character classes, a surprising number of adventures just kind of blindly assume all of the PCs will be human.)

If you’re running a Mothership campaign, Cryonambulism is the perfect filler episode: Don’t have the next adventure prepped yet? Good news! As the PCs blast off to their next destination, you can just hit the pause button by having the nightmare parasite infect their hypersleep!

On the other hand, I’m a little more skeptical about using this adventure as a stand-alone one-shot. The setup for the adventure seems to work best if the players are a little disoriented and uncertain about what’s happening. (Did we actually arrive at the destination and our ship was bizarrely wrecked in transit? Or is something else going on here?) And a lot of the payoffs feel like they’ll land a lot better if the players are more familiar with (and personally attached to) their ship. As a stand-alone, I think it can still work; but I think it’ll also be a tougher sell.

GRADE: B-

HIDEO’S WORLD

Hideo K designed a video game console that lets you play video games in your dreams. Unable to mass produce it, Hideo hooked himself up to his prototype and put himself into a drug-induced coma where he could live in the game world he’d created forever. To wake Hideo up, the PCs will need to enter the game world themselves!

This adventure doesn’t do it for me.

For starters, the lack of a scenario hook really hurts here: No reason is given for why the PCs might be motivated to seek out a washed-up video game developer. And when you start thinking about the premise to gin up your own scenario hook, you quickly realize that there are a lot of unanswered questions. (For example, where is Hideo’s body?)

Unfortunately, once you’ve entered the game world, it doesn’t get better. Hideo is supposed to have been trapped in this world for years or decades, but, of course, in just two pages you can’t really describe a world with a scope that would sell that idea. Most of the module actually describes the game’s main menu, and the rest is a single tower with eight rooms which is apparently the entirety of the game world.

This also contributes to the game world just not being very interesting, which is kind of a death knell for this sort of adventure. There’s possibly a weak stab in the direction of satire and also a friendly wave in the direction of Inception’s dream world logic, but there’s a lack of a strong, coherent vision.

I should also mention that Hideo’s World also comes with an audio file representing the soundtrack of the virtual world.  This is okay, but has the pretty typical problem of many tabletop soundtracks of being too short: Do you really want to listen to three minutes and thirty seconds of video game menu music on a loop for a couple of hours?

GRADE: F

It occurs to me that you might be able to make a bit more sense of all this if you ditch the idea of Hideo being trapped for years and instead make the machine a prototype device whose code has been corrupted by Hideo’s subconscious mind. Then you could have his investors hire the PCs to go in and pull him out. Or, in a long-running campaign, you could even set things up by having Hideo pitch the idea to the PCs after a big pay day and try to get them to invest. That’s a lot of remixing for a two-page adventure, though.

Go to Part 2

Androids have a lot of advantages in Mothership, being functionally immune to a bunch of dangers that humans have to contend with.

So I thought it was only fair to level the playing field a bit…

PSEUDOMILK PARASITES

[W:1(3), Android Infestation: Body Save or 1d10 DMG/minute]

These opal-white flatworms have evolved to feed on the pseudomilk “blood” used by most androids and some supercomputer installations. They can notably infest android production lines, grinding synth factories to a halt.

They are, of course, also dangerous to individual androids, clotting their pumps and damaging their cybertronic systems (both directly and due to depriving them of pseudomilk).

In addition to individual androids, pseudomilk gestation pools, pseudomilk infusion bags, and the like, the parasites have evolved to embed themselves in synthflesh and plastic. They can also be found dormant in other liquids. This is particularly true of the parasite’s embryos, up to 40,000 of which of which may be found in a fertile proglottid.

They pose no known threat to humans.

Officials have now confirmed the reports of a massive outbreak of parasites among the pleasurebots on Pandora Station.

CUT TO—

Dr. Eberhaus: We’ve never seen anything like this. It appears that the Taenia lacsitienti on Pandora have evolved to infect human gonads with their larvae, allowing them to pass between android hosts via human sexual contact.

CUT TO—

It remains unclear what effect, if any, the worms may have on their human hosts, but those who may have been exposed — directly or indirectly — to the Pandora outbreak should schedule a medical scan as soon as possible.

LX-510 SuperNEWS Broadcast

Android Infestation: If an android touches a pseudomilk parasite, the worm will aggressively burrow into their skin with shocking speed. The android must succeed on a Body save [-] to prevent the worm from burrowing in, and must make an additional Body save once per minute or suffer 1D10 damage.

Treatment is difficult:

• Immediately amputating a limb has a 90% chance of stopping a burrowed parasite (-20% chance per round).
• Applying flame or acid to the wound may kill the worm, dealing 1 point of damage to the worm for every 3 points suffered by the android.

If the worm has burrowed deep, a cybernetic diagnostic scanner may be able to locate the worm, although extracting it without inflicting significant physical trauma will likely be difficult or impossible without proper treatment facilities.

An emergency exsanguination will disable the android and, if not carried out with proper equipment, carries a risk of significant damage (Body save or 3D10 DMG). But it can also force the worm to make a Body save or suffer 1D10 DMG. (Even if it survives, the worm will usually enter a dormant state and reduce damage checks to once per day, possibly allowing enough time for the android to be moved to a proper treatment facility.)

If an android has been infested by a worm for more than ten minutes, they must also make a Body save to determine if they have a larval exposure (see below).

Larval Exposure: When individual androids are exposed to parasitic larvae, for example,

• wading or bathing in contaminated liquids
• physically interfacing with an infested android/system
• using a contaminated synthflesh or plastic item
• wearing infested power armor or clothes

they must succeed on a Body save [-] or become infested, with 1D6-1 worms hatching 2D10 hours later and every hour thereafter. (Each additional worm after the first adds +1 damage per damage check.)

Risky Environments: Androids in risky environments — e.g., powering down in a parasite-infested facility — might have a 1 in 6 chance per hour of attracting the attention of a pseudomilk parasite.

Valpurna Cyberdoc: Bite marks identified on right calf. Source biological or synethetic?

Ettin 5: Synthetic. w0lf-XYα security pack.

Valpurna Cyberdoc: Initiating emergency parasitic scan.

Next: Pseudomilk Predators