Sunday, 12 December 2021

25 Alt Histories

 I love alternate history, despite the fact that the majority of the stuff out there kind of sucks (apart from that one short story where the Titanic survivors start a floating pirate city). As usual I have missed the boat entirel but whatever here are my Efforts

  1. The Diggers ideology takes root in Leveller groups; occupation of land and non-payment of rents rapidly evolves into a popular uprising
  2. One of the nuclear bombs accidently dropped on north carolina by the USAF detonates
  3. Makhno remains in Ukraine, Bolsheviks successfuly repelled by the Black Army
  4. IRA sniper assassinates Margret Thatcher as she flees the Grand Brighton Hotel
  5. Opium Wars end in british defeat
  6. Pokemon anime is censored, Digimon becomes most popular childrens cartoon of its time
  7. Sun has a binary partner star with orbiting bodies
  8. Indian forces defeat the East India Company at Gwalior
  9. WW1 continues until 1920; leads to general mutiny by all armies involved
  10. Ned Kelly is never caught
  11. Earths rotation is half as fast
  12. Roswell confirmed as genuine alien probe crash-landing  
  13. Disneys original vision for Epcot is successfuly realised
  14. Great Apes evolve abilty to hibernate
  15. Ottoman Empire conquers most of europe in late 1400s
  16. John C Lily teaches a dolphin english
  17. Zealandia never sinks
  18. Sergei Korolev dies in the gulag
  19. US fakes the moon landings
  20. Oswald the Rabbit remains disneys mascot
  21. Constantine the Great never adopts christianity
  22. Council of Nicaea fails, no biblical canon established
  23. Anastasia escapes russia, goes into exile
  24. Spartan victory at the Battle of Thermopylae
  25. Definitive evidence of a yuletide gift-giving entity is obtained

 

 

 

Wednesday, 1 December 2021

5 Rival Parties

The official cast of the Cowboy Bebop remake has been announced | Dazed
 
 
Intended for Mothership but they'd work in any scifi setting, and in Esoteric Enterprises with a few tweaks.
 
1.  
Filaq- Scoin of deposed corporate royalty. Looks entirely too soft for this life. Suprisingly empathic for managment. Holdout pistol. Massive bounty on his head. Flight suit decorated with elephant motifs.
 
Unnman- Willowy, standoffish. Wields a monowire sword, lethal with it. Collects lenses from laser weapons, intricatly engraves them.
 
Amar- Veteran boarding trooper. Massive axe, collapsible shotgun slung on the shoulder. Quiet, careful. Last-gen battledress, patchwork repairs. A dozen campaign patches from a half-dozen armies.


2.
Mendicant_Emerald5- Tech-priest, exiled for her heresies. Intricate braids of steel cables and fiber-optics, delicate arms branch from spinal rig.

Korz- Battle-sister of Our Lady of Absolution. Kind of a scumbag. Wild mane of hair, mortified skin, smokes drinks and gambles. Hired by Mendicant as a bodyguard, is catching feelings. 

Rosemary- Short, plump, rosey features. Pacifist healer. Raised by 7 forks of the same mother, of who she is clone. Often nonverbal, knows every sign language under the stars. Many many bangles, necklaces and charms.


3.
'Fetch'- Uplifted dog. Tower of muscle and subdermal armour and cybernetic claws. About as smart as an 11-yr old. Behaves like a friendly dog. Entirely too trusting. Excellent tactician.

'Woods'- Uplifted bear. Rex's secound, usually handles negotiations. Wields an enormous recoiless rifle. Calm, always has a plan. Carries Petal's mobile hives on her back.

'Scales'- Various kinds of lizards, crocodiles and other bits, blended into a 11-ft long predator. Tactical cloak, poison and designated marskman. Lazy, only really cares about food, killing and the other three.

'Petal'- Autonomous swarm of bees guided by emergent intelligence. Weird as fuck. 


4.
Jean- Legendary thief. Swaps sleeves regularly. Leaves backups of himself everywhere. The plan you're seeing is definetly not his real plan.

Mieli- Warrior from far-outer-system colony. Ascetic. Very good at seperating men from their ghosts. In thrall to a posthuman ego-thief, who holds her lover to ransom.

 
5.
Lander- Washed out of marine corp. Bulky armour. Practically immune to fear when it comes to space horrors, and is writing an almanac on them. Also fond of eating them, when he can. Searching for his sister, consumed by an alien megastructure.


Marcia- Flouncy, fussy. Corporate nobility. Wielder of the Art- her devil marks number over 20. Despairs at Lander and Zanshi's culinary habits. In love with Lander's sister, and would go do terrible things to save her.


Chilk- Long-suffering hacker and infiltrator. Seperated from his wife, misses his kids. Descended from Neotenic colonists and is often mistaken for a child.


Zanshi- Spent too long in the depths. Expert chef, hunter, gardener and gatherer. Can turn pretty much anything into a meal. His boarding shield and blade double as cooking tools. Heavyworlder, large bushy beard.

 



Monday, 22 November 2021

WHALEFALL: Inventory worldbuilding

 

WHALEFALLS

They appear where the walls of realspace are weakened- at the conjunction of jump lanes, the site of drive accidents, near the wounds of Gaunt incursions. Somewhere far above us, in some golden dimension of vectors and light and heavenly uncolour, they died- and now they fall. They fall longer and further than anything has fallen before, tumbling between dimensions, through cracks and tears, until at last they land here. The ocean floor, the abyssal plane. 


And here now the scavengers come to feast, to crawl within these rough beasts, asteroid-sized titans of strange flesh, impossible biology. 


The mad, the hungry, the desperate, the alien.



The Cutter

Carving away at the Corpse of a god; for love, for credits, for obsession. Make your fortune and get out fast, or it’ll take you, body and soul.


  1. Vibro-cleaver. Mono edged, 200hr battery life. 2-handed haft attachment for cutting at a distance. Leather grip, the hide of your master.

  2. Paring Sword for delicate work; carving fat from bone from muscle.

  3. Stents; holds open flesh liable to collapse. Extends to 3m when triggered.

  4. Vacsuit, carved with wards. The Corpse warp biology by their very presence, and wreak havoc on an unprotected body.

  5. Guild tattoos, patterns of red and black. The Bloody House takes a third of your haul, but you can count on their protection when it comes down to it.

  6. Apprentice. Rake-thin girl, an orphan. Quick with a blade. She cleans the meat from your boots and you teach her everything you know.

  7. Shuttle. Leaky, cramped, mostly owned by the Guild. Home, such as it is.

  8. Refrigerated vacuum containers for valuable finds; Blue Meat, Black Meat, Pearls and Red Marrow, oil and ambergris.

  9. Collapsible SMG, Crawler-toxin rounds. Will see off most of the arasites and predators that the Corpse brought with it.

  10. Digging beast; something like a giant maggot crossed with a spider, head a mass of feelers and grinding teeth. Carves through WHALE-flesh like butter Traded from the Gaunt for a keg of engine-fuel vodka.

  11. Synthetic ‘meat’ buns, artificial teriyaki flavour. Organic substances close to the Corpse tend to go strange.

  12. Minor mutation, delicate fleshy frilling on your hips. The toxicity of the Corpse builds up despite the best preparations, and this is a sign that the seasonal limit is close.

  13. Totem to the Butcher-gods, worn on a cord at the wrist. Metal and stone. The sanctioned action is to cut.



The Gaunt

You and your swarm hitched a ride on a dimensional wind, following the Breacher as it fell down to Realspace. The local sophonts have a shanty-town here; you decided to stay awhile.


  1. Host body. Traded, not stolen; you aren't a heretic. Some kind of livestock, bred by the Butcher Guilds for compatibility. After bonding, resembles a skinny hazard suit crossed with a pig and an octopus.

  2. Jar of plastic cut-offs marinated in alcohol made by locals. Delicious.

  3. Realspace form, a glowing white worm, lined with tendrils. Interwoven with your host for as long as you’ll stay here.

  4. Unraveller. Weapon of your Spawn-mother/father/descendent, handed down to you. A twisting, knobbled rod that blooms into fractal thorns. You haven't had to use it yet, and you hope not to.

  5. Large collection of nude portraits, your beverage of choice. Humans make such beautiful art.

  6. Laser Cutter, taken from the dead. Produces fascinating beams of heat and energy. These hurt, as you have learned.

  7. Garment woven from acrylic thread- a bodysuit and hood. A concession to human sensibilities. Also a snack in an emergency.

  8. Sheaf of poetry carved on thin ceramic tablets; a gift from your companion. Dark, brooding, violent- a delight to the senses.

  9. Maps of the Corpse; irregular spheroids of bone, delicately carved and warped. Your career as a guide would be hard without it.

  10. Receipt chit for a unique chimerical sleeve, currently growing in its womb-pod. You have grown attached to the human that calls you ‘’lover’, and don’t intend to lose them to the realspace disease of entropy.

  11. Immigration papers. The Bloody Houses welcome your kind and the wealth you can bring them, but insist on bureaucracy. 

  12. Structure resembling a bonsai tree of screaming faces; made from Blue Meat and Iron. Communication device, lets you call home. You don’t often, it gives your neighbors nightmares.

  13. Oil lamp. In the depths of the Corpse, electricity cannot flow. The flickering unlight shows the way.



The Cannibal Sister

You learned at the feet of the Red Nuns; of the God-Corpse’ fall from heaven, of the secrets of Meat and Bone. With blade and song you guide the wayward souls who eat at your God.


  1. Your tools, bewildering array of blades stored in a leather satchel. No soul in the Corpse can be left behind, lest God consume them.

  2. Prayer-book, containing the songs and rites of your order. Metal and plastic

  3. Webbing of Corpse-flesh, traded from the Gaunt, inserted around the intestines. Protection from Prion disease.

  4. Habit; tunic, apron, headscarf. Crafted from skin of fallen Priests and Black Flesh cord.

  5. Cermet belly-plate. Your gut is where you keep the souls of your flock; injury to it is unthinkable.

  6. Highly-trained vocal cords. Polyphonic Overtone throat-singing  takes a lot of practice.

  7. Major mutation; tube-like structures erupting from your back, fingers splitting fractally.


  1. Goch/Petric Microcomp B-series loaded with the collected series of shitty cop procedural Flash/Burn and some strategy games.

  2. Custom biogland inserted in the thigh, produces steady drip of estrogen and anti-androgens.

  3. Packed lunch- smoked thigh-meat jerky, chunks of raw liver, fermented marrow drink.

  4. Bobble-headed Gaunt figurine. Ophelia Cheng Von Patel is the local Alpha, and an enterprising one at that. She even sells pin-ups.

  5. Hammer, head in the shape of a meat tenderizer. Weapon of your order. Biotech inertia device in the handle; when activated a good swing hits with around 0.5Knwt.

  6. Wedding scars, unique pattern across the forehead. Your partner is a teamster, contracted to a long-haul cargo vessel. You won’t see her for another four months.

Thursday, 4 November 2021

Ghouls and a Wizard

 


 
Class: Ghouls
Sometimes starvation doesn't kill. Not completely. Out of desperation, anger, sheer bloody-mindedness, the unfortunate can keep going. 
 
A half-life, their bodies animated by the bottomless pit of hunger that has made its home inside them. It moves them ever-onward. They are slaves to it.
 
They make their homes in the alleyways and gutters, the sewers of megacities, sleeping in the corners of abandoned stations. 
 
Grey things, pale things. 
 
Ghouls.
 
 
Major features:
  • Tall, gangly humanoids. Usually between 7-8ft
  • Thick, leathery skin. Withered, gaunt appearence.
  • Good night vision. 
  • Long long arms and legs. 
  • Elongated heads, huge lantern-like eyes.
 
Becoming a ghoul
Not that hard.  When you are at the edge of starvation, make a Sanity save. If this is successful, the PC has 1 day to find and consume fresh, dead human meat. A ghoul can usually survive on not that much at all- but the first time, they need it all.
 
Over the following week, the PC will transform into a Ghoul, undergoing the following changes:
  • +10% Speed, +10% Strength, -5% Sanity save
  • Claw attack: 3d10, save or paralysis
  • +7% Armour from thick hide and deadened pain response
  • Loss of humanity. You are capable of friendship, but people are always meat first.
  • Cannot be any kind of magician- the hunger leaves no room for anything else. 
  • Immune to vaccum exposure, no need to breathe or sleep.
  • Must consume dead human flesh.
The base state of a Ghoul is Hungry.
 
Starving: Going three days without eating corpse-flesh causes a loss of higher functions- all Intellect tests at (-), cannot use any Expert skills.
 
Ravenous: Going a week reduces the PC to a near-animalistic state. They are capable of recognizing friend from foe, but must take a sanity save to avoid attempting to eat any humans they encounter, suffering 1d10 stress on a success.  Cannot use any skills.

Feral: Going 2 weeks or more, the PC will be lost-for now. Any meat will return them to a Ravenous state.
 
Hibernation: Going 3 months without food, a Ghoul will enter a state of suspended animation. They do not register on heat sensors, and can exist this way for centuries. Any movement within 10 meters causes them to awake, drifting slowly towards prey, mouths agape.

Shipbreaking old derelicts lost in the void is a dangerous profession. They sometimes have Ghouls in them.
 

 

Marga and HEE-Beta-8892 "R███"

A vibrating ball of violence and trauma, wrapped in a stained tracksuit and shaggy ginger hair. Gaunt appearence, hard eyes- far too hard for a 12-year old. If anyone cared, she could be helped- but there is very little help to be had for runaways out on the rim.
 
 
Marga is a wielder of the Art, and a fairly potent one at that. You can find her in rimworld ports, hive city underworlds, stowing away in the depths of a bulk hauler. She's a hitman for hire, something which she's pretty good at thanks to her contract with The Bomb Devil.
 
Marga, Explosion Child
Stats:  H:3(20) I:50 C:30 Potency:58
Favoured Lies:
  • Red Arts:  
    • Fragged: Transforms a nearby object into plastic explosives, function as Frag Grenade.
  • Red-White Arts:
    • Collars: Body Save or skin around neck shifts and warps, becoming a ring of cysts full of explosive biochemicals. Marga can detonate these at will. 
  • White Arts:   
    • Detonation: Marga rolls Potency. On success, 2d10 damage from explosive blast. If this brings a character to 0 they violently explode, dealing 5d10 damage to anyone nearby.
  • Black Arts: 
    •  Kaboom: Marga rolls Potency at (-). On failure she takes 1 hit of damage. On success, a large bomb is created within 20m, detonating on Marga's command. 5d10 to everything within 100 meters.
 Inventory:
  • Shiv, fashioned from blast-glass. 2d10, weapon of last resort
  • Unregistered credstick, 500kcr loaded
  • 5 packets of MEGAFLAVOUR Instant ramen tubes, pork flavour
  • Hip flask, high-proof Devil Liquor
  • 2nd-hand Vacsuit
  • Ragged felt toy, Mog the Alien
  • Red scarf, a token from HEE-Beta-8892
  • Scribbled protective charms, plastered to her body beneath clothes.
 
So far, Marga has killed one other wizard and eaten their Tumour, and the toxicity build-up has exacerbated her existing unstable nature. She will become a Devil within three years if left unchecked.

The Devil that holds her contract is unusually fond of her. If she is close to death, there is a 20% chance that HEE-Beta-8892 will intervene. PCs are unlikely to survive this.
 
Using Marga
Marga is a murderer-for-hire, her use of the Art being solely focussed on violence. As an enemy she'll lay traps for the players using her Fragged power, following up with  Detonation, with Kaboom as a last resort to cover a retreat. 
If she needs bodies, she'll use Collar on randos and threaten them into compliance. 

As an assassin, her fee is 50kcr. 70% clearance rate, don't expect subtely.




Sunday, 10 October 2021

Monster Menu-All: Mothership Edition

 

Obviously inspired by Skerples posts. Hopefully this will help if you ever find yourself in a situation where your players are demanding you let them eat the alien horror. Or if you want some random flavours for street food on distant worlds.


Normal Alien Meat 
For when you've killed something strange and decided to eat it, and it just so happens to have compatible biochemistry. 
Roll on the table below for how edible your meal is. Proper hygiene, cooking it well, a successful gastronomy roll etc. give +1. 
  
1d10
1-2           Disgusting. Body Save or suffer from food poisoning for 1d10 hours. Gain 1 stress
3-9           Adequate. No special effect.
10            A culinary sensation. Advantage to heal if you are resting, and relieve 1 stress.  
 
Obviously this only applies to compatible biologies. Dont try to eat silicon- or ammonia-based lifeforms.
 
For taste and texture, roll twice, or just once and read across horizontally. You can also use this for any foods you find on frontier colonies, strange street stalls, dubious fast food shops, etc.

1d25            Texture                                                 Flavour                                                    

1                  Crunchy                                                 Salmon     
2                  Squelchy                                                Beef 
3                  Crusty                                                    Pork 
4                  Stringy                                                   Gammon    
5                  Fatty                                                       Escargot 
6                  Buttery                                                   Chicken 
7                  Lean                                                       Clams 
8                 Tough                                                     Jackfruit 
9                 Oily                                                        Grass 
10               Flaky                                                      Pineapple 
11               Spongy                                                   Mutton 
12               Gelatinous                                              Crickets 
13               Gristly                                                    Vinegar 
14               Rubbery                                                  Tofu  
15               Juicy                                                       Soy Sauce 
16               Oozing                                                    Brown Sugar 
17               Coarse                                                     Abestos 
18               Sinewy                                                    Drywall 
19               Supple                                                     Yoghurt 
20               Oddly Familiar                                       Your mothers cooking 
21               Dense                                                      Metallic 
22               Caustic                                                    Vaguely Chemical 
23               Papery                                                     Squid/octopus 
24               Tooth-breakingly hard                            Ashes 
25               Irregular (roll twice)                               Weird (roll twice)
 
Actual Monsters  
If your players try to eat these then idk what to tell you.
 
 
Alpha Gaunt
Taste: Rubber soaked in acid, pure ethanol and petrol. Meat hums unpleasently and writhes in the corner of your vision. And your mouth.
Chefs tip: Exposing the meat to a Jump Drive for a month gives a +1 to the roll.
 
1           Hyperspace Intrusion: Your body warps into a Dead Gate. Crawlers, death worms and worse pour  through. Good luck.
2-4      Wormspawn: Parasitised cells hijack your body. Once a day, 1d10 Death Worms emerge from your mouth. You take 1d10 stress, 2d10 damage and must save or Panic, nearby PCs must make a Fear save or take 1d5 stress.
5-8      Shrivelled: Your skin pulls tight, turns grey and leathery. -10 to speed and body save. Take a sanity save each day or suffer a compulsion to sculpt.
9         Gaunt Hunger: As Shrivelled but gain the need to subsist on raw flesh, industrial chemicals, alcohol and fuel. 
10       Gaunt Apotheosis: Gain the Telekinetic Drain attack. Gaunt creatures will treat you as an ally. +15 to Speed and Combat. Your fingers can elongate to long, molecular-thin claws. Whenever you travel by Jump drive, there is a 40% chance the ship will be becalmed in orbit of the Dead Planet.
 
Ypsilon 14 Specter
Taste: Gristly, oily and stringy, strange tingly feeling. The meat of a predator. After hibernation, it is starving- there won't be enough meat for everyone. Wash thoroughly before the meal, wear protective clothing.
Chefs tip: If cooked, its Normal Alien meat. If consumed raw, roll on the table below. 
 
1        Goo'd: You didn't clean it properly! You die slowly over the next day or so, dissolving into yellow goop.
2-8    Consumption: Parts of your insides are dissolved. You don't die, but you will need serious medical care for the rest of your life. Body Save halved.
9        Hibernation: On the point of death, you can create a cocoon of yellow goop that will heal you (once). Doing so takes all the energy you possess, and you will emerge starving and with permenantly halved HP.
10      Predation: Alien healing agents remake your body. As Hibernation, but you also gain a chameleonic skin and become an obligate carnivore.


Blue Comet
You can't eat stone . If you manage to chip a piece from the comet and swallow it without looking, roll on the table below.

1        Blue Cancer: You die an extremely painful and visually interesting death, as blue tumours erupt across your body and eat you alive.
2-9    Obsession: You become terminally obsessed with the Blue Comet (see Moonbase Blues)
10      Sapphire Majesty: You can move in zero-G as easy as swimming. Your eyes and mouth emit blinding beams of Blue Comet light. Comet cultists worship you. 


Deep Androids
Taste: Pale imitation of pork, foul chemical aftertaste. 
Chefs tip: Synthflesh tends to melt like plastic when cooked and release toxic fumes. For best results consume raw.

1       Imitator: That's not an android, thats a human. +1d10 Stress and Bends
2-4    Connection: MONARCH scans your body as the meal moves through you. The brainscan it takes it bizarre- obsessed with food and the act of consumption.
5-7    Infiltrator: You consumed an infiltration Android. +1d10 Bends as the knowledge of its mission washes over you. Memories not your own fill your dreams. 1/day, change your face to someone elses.
8-9    Soul Eater: Gain the ability to consume brainscans. Doing so allows you to recall their memories perfectly, but take 1 stress when doing so. Androids and AIs regard you with hostility and suspiscion. 
10     Deepmind: As Soul Eater but gain no stress. Your appetite extends to human minds too, which you can consume straight from the brain. You can sense sapient beings at a range of 20 meters.

Sunday, 3 October 2021

5 Hyperspace Intrusions

When your a guardsman on your way to defend a planet, but the gellar field  fails - 9GAG

Dandyman wrote up a big list of reasons your ship is crawling with monsters when your gellar field  Caldwell Manifold hyperspace condom fails, so I did some rolling.


The following are cuttings from the banned text 'Field Guide to Caldwell Failures.' The book contained catalouged information on Hyperspace Intrusion Events, compiled from survivors stories, folklore, remains of events themselves and information stolen from top-level corporate sources. Author is unknown.

Cleaners
Trigger: Dirty vents and filters
Recorded Evidence:
  •  Low-quality footage from a handheld device. 
    • No sound. Depicts white hazard suits erupting from vents in a ships corridor. Suits are misshapen and lumpy, seals leak a brownish-red fluid. Chests are emblazoned with unknown symbol and blurred text. Footage lasts for 25 secounds before cutting.
  •  Audio sample, found in background noise of a cleaning supplies advert.
    • [Voice 1] (unintelligable)zipped him, they just unzipped him and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrub-
    • [Voice 2] Shhhhut up shut the fuck up stay quie-
 
Gunner Jenny
Trigger: Corpses
Recorded Evidence:
  • Childrens rhyme, recorded in Low Stacks, Bardistown Hive
    • Sergent Jenny, out in the black//Corpo stabbed them in the back//Bodys dust but Jennys not dead//Now her soul is fire and lead//So if your stiffs arnt passed along//Gunner Jennys not yet gone
  •  Mural daubed on hull of wrecked vessel. Depicts hunched corpse, head and hands replaced with many overlapping firearms. Skull hovers above, halo of red hair.
  • Collected shell casings, recovered from derelict vessel. Number in excess of 25,000,  each etched with text from standard NDA forms used by most mercenary corporations.

Scuttle.exe
Trigger: Accessing networks mid-jump
Recorded Evidence:
  •  Footage from a security camera, dining hall of a luxury cruiser.
    • Swarms of insects pour from wall console. Several passengers appear to be partly-consumed, with insects regurgitating consumed flesh into center of room to form a pentagonal hive structure.
  • 7-legged insect-like creature. Thorax pattern resembles human face. Dissection  revealed no internal organs, instead tangled masses of wire and human hair.


The Cables
Trigger: Android without voided warranty
Recorded Evidence:
  •  First-hand survivors account:
    • "First thing we knew was wrong was the android. Molly was workin the console when she just stopped and turned to face the wall. There was this scratching, scraping sound. Like rats. Then this...thing came right through the hull. Some kind of cable. Stabbed her straight in the head, started jerking her around like a puppet. 
She wouldnt stop laughing. 
  • Remains of a Supermashi/Kane General Purpose Series 3 android. Head casing pierced by length of black cable-like structure that has melded with the logic core. Core itself constantly weeps unknown fluid and has gained a sponge-like texture. Limbs missing, damage to sockets consistent with models own teeth.


Argument Tiger
Trigger: Grudges
Recorded Evidence:
  •  Video captured by SBD bodycam.
    • Two marines, A and B, argue in what appears to be a troopship training area. Three minutes in, a creature resembling an adult male bengal tiger emerges from marine A's mouth and proceeds to maul and partly consume marine B. Marine A collapses,vomiting orange fur.

Monday, 29 March 2021

1d10 Ship Spirits and curses

'It ain't hard to keep them happy. Uusally alcohol, cigs and food; and don't let the place get too dirty. Try not to spill too much blood around, or it might get a taste for it.'

-Common spacers knowledge on appeasing a ships spirit.

When a ship becomes a home to its crew, infused with their dreams and lives, a spirit will inevitably manifest. Whether they generate sponteneously or, like spacers, mill about at docks waiting for a likely vessel, is the matter of some debate.

1d10

Appearance

Offerings

1

A wizened figure, the size of a small child, with a beard of soot and embers. Clad in a cloak of reflective foil.

Hard spirits and cigarettes left outside the engine airlock.

2

An elongated fox with 8 legs, empty eyes that glitter with stars.  Tail turns to pale flames at the tip.

Something meaty, ideally real but krill or soy is fine.

3

An extra cryopod, glass misted over. Faint figure seen inside, curled into a ball. Wet footprints appear in the night.

An extra place at the galley table, a locker left empty.

4

Thin, 8-Armed man, coal-glasses and a bushy mustache. Squats in life support, arms snake through ventilation.

Herbal tea poured into the water recycler and burnt incense.

5

Stencil of a fat golden fish, swims along the walls of corridors. Appears by itself or in shoals.

Drawings, paintings and fried fish curry.

6

Enormous 8-tailed rat, fibre-optic strands for hair. Steals small trinkets from crew and passengers for its nest.

Gigabytes of junk data loaded onto USBs and intentionally lost.

7

Unknown. Cloaks itself in a pile of blankets woven from rubbish and lost things. Enormous eyes, four pupils.

Shredded items of comfort- jumps, gowns, onesies and slippers.

8

Squat iron furnace, moves on lion-clawed legs. Carved face alternates between human and animal visage. Lives inside the reactor.

Spent jump cores. Coal. Used clothes and furniture.

9

Disembodied head in a vascuit helmet. Trails thick hair to the floor.

Empty oxygen tanks, prayers sharpied on.

10

Vulture-like head and neck protrudes from a heavy radiation suit. Leaves feathers everywhere.

Credits and shiny things. Flesh from those who die aboard the ship.

Sometimes the relationship breaks down, due to neglect, carelessness or ignorance. A ship spirit can place a curse on the crew, which will remain until the spirit is either appeased or evicted.

1d10

Curse

Appeasement

1

Becalmed. Thrusters produce no movement, jumps cannot be made.

A living sacrifice, pushed out an airlock or thrown into thrusters.

2

Water turns brackish and foul, pipes begin to rust. Vents clogged with hair.

Purification. Crew must fast for a week, meditate and thoroughly clean the vessel.

3

Glitches cascade through systems, impossible to use any terminals or workstations.

Votive candles and written prayers arranged around computer core and terminals.

4

Food rots, no matter how well preserved.

A pint of blood from every crewmember, smeared on the exterior hull.

5

Freak accidents become impossibly common.

Statues and icons of the spirit, placed throughout the vessel.

6

Temperature fluctuates, between freezing cold and scolding hot.

Feed 90% of food on the ship to the reactor, leave just enough to survive.

7

Credits or valuables aboard the ship turn to dust and rubbish.

Sacrifice items of sentimental value to the spirit.

8

Interior corridors become a maze. Takes hours to get from room to room.

No clothes or modern technology for 10 days. Crew must smear bodies with engine soot.

9

Large, aggressive rats and insects fill walls and swarm across the ship.

Spirit takes a crewmember's body for a joyride on a station.

10

Sleep interrupted by howling, banging, scraping at walls and raucous singing over the intercom. Rest is impossible.

Bacchanalia! Music, dancing, wine and song. Liquor on the walls and debauchery in the bunks.