Conceit: The ancient space-hulks of the bygone civilizations are far superior to the rickety, leaky, unshielded coffins modern societies can make. Scavengers can make a hearty profit dragging back 1000-year-old teleport pads or grav generators, as no one can duplicate the technology.
Conceit for at-table ship generation: The old ships are bigger on the inside, pocket dimensions and warp-tech built into the decking. Scanners can't map the ships, so you get to go in and find out if the narrow, insectile fighter has a pool and a robo-falconry room tucked away somewhere. This way the GM can make a ship a room at a time.
ROOMS
- indoc-chamber. Corridor flows around this floor-to-ceiling cylinder. Inside, humans will be augmented (+1 HD or +2 to Str and Con) and indoctrinated. Indoctrination: 1) Aid the Space Tyrant’s agents in all ways 2) protect the innocent and corporate property 3) Hunt down Space God heretics 4) Stop the use of drugs and intoxicants
- Stealth systems room
- Children's creche
- Teleport decoy room, automated defense based on IFF crew badges
- Art room 1) Sculpture 2) Holoplay 3) Tapestries 4) Paintings 5) Psi-stones 6) hallucinogenic plants
- Trophy room. Critters, ship scraps
- Corridor with semi-sentient ferrofluid creature starting to ooze out of broken pipes.
- Corridor elbow. Hidden bomb-maker's niche, 25% of actual explosives.
- Gun smithery. 25% has something obviously useful in a glass steel safe (hd 5).
- Workshop. 1) guns 2) armor 3) industrial 4) plant hybridizer
- Nanofactory, 50% working
- Gravity Generator
- Heart, living ship.
- Brain core, 66% insane
- Waste recyc. 1) worth 5k, hyper-good, lossless 2) 1k, better than modern tech 3-6) equivalent to modern tech
- Star Portal Generator, 1d4 destinations programmed in, 66% busted
- Moravec maker (ie can turn organic beings into machine equivalent)
- Brain peeler, 1d4 upload hard drives left
- Oil, water, antifreeze, fuel: ship fluids store.
- Stockade cells and minor panopticon, wall controls for microwave agonizers
- Zero-g corridor
- Drone hanger. 1-3) empty, 4) repair drone 5) missile drone 6) stealth spotter scout
- Bar niche in corridor
- Blast door, exploded, no longer bars corridor
- Foundry 1-4) normal metals, 5) glass steel 6) adamantium, 50% cooled and ruined
- Clone pod, 66% contains a monster about to be auto-birthed
- Rune library and wizard cylinder, 2 uses left. Imprints a 1/day useable spell. Learn: 1) atmospell, 2) detect life 3) control flame 4) dimensional door 5) hold person 6) hold portal 7)cloudkill 8) polymorph other 9) polymorph self 10) feather fall
- holo beach
- corridor with climbing wall, grav adjust lever, currently set to 2x
- Corridor with shot env controls. 1) steam-choked 2) frozen water on all surfaces 3) flooded 4) smokey 5) poison gas air 6) raining hard
- Ray-shielded corridor
- L-corridor with automated defense ceiling fixture
- Science lab, unstable chemicals in beakers, magnetically attached to wall. Shielding protection system has failed. 20% chance locked, working computer with esoteric research.
- Cryotube room. 20% chance occupied with hostile life forms. Fire in ship or intruders in room who fail to notice laser tripwires will awaken the life forms in 1d4 rounds.
- Depleted armory. Can search for random items no larger than a small pistol. Ray-shielded entrance.
- Mining laser control room.
- Backup airlock, 1) ripped spacesuits 2) cracked helm 3) slow leak 4) space kudzu infiltration 5) mynock nest on the outside 6) full air bottle, functional emergency suit
- Entertainment area - cards, holoprojector, 20% some collectible media.
- Escape pods, 1d4 - 2 left
- Exercise room. Weights, putty-like resistance bands, hyper gravity chamber.
- Kitchen, dining area.
- Fold-up bunk room.
- Computation room. 1) datastore, heavily encrypted 2) sparking, catching fire 3) digital sophont infestation, insane, wants network access to rest of ship 4) Uplink to Locusts / Borg / BBG 5) LAN party setup, with sealed snack tubes 6) Ancient encryption breaker, 1d4 uses until quantum matrices exhausted
- Medical bay, hyperbaric healing surgery bot chamber
- Fuel core room, spares. 20% radiation leak.
- Dorm room.
- Corridor speckled with organic matter from space troll den, which is up against the ceiling.
- Sealed emergency blast door, hd 9.
- Corridor, space plague victim died messily. Corpse clutches ulfire gem worth 1100 credits.
- Stowage, 1 ton capacity. 1) water 2) laser rifle battery cores 3) emergency space suits 4) space plague medicines 5) empty 6) heavily DRM’d holoprojectors
- Droid repair bay
- War froglet storage. Ray-shielded, locked, designed to be jettisoned from ship via shaped charges, either from bridge or at the door. 66% vacant thank the Space Gods.
- Shrine to Space Gods with offerings of booze, drugs, antique ray gun, fuzzy dice. Stealing from the shrine gives Mild Curse of the Space Gods - disadvantage on rolls for 24 hours. Reroll encounter checks and take worse result.
- Depressurized area cordoned off by ray-shielding or emergency blast doors, hd 2.
- Digital sophist storage servers. 50% vacant.
- Corridor with collapsed walls and ceiling, forming a 3’ tunnel to next area(s).
- Extra food, water stores, enough for the crew to last 2 months.
- Long range survey scanners and control room. 25% they’re better than modern tech.
- Teleporter pods and controls, 25% still works.
- Drop pods and drop pod cannon. d6 drop pods left. Can fire drop pods out 1 hex / 1 AU / 1 Big Distance and make a quiet, obscure planetfall.
- Artificial gravity generator.
- Holo training room for various combat situations. Illusions that do subdued damage 50% running at present. Captain codes for ship can make the hard and soft light holograms lethal.
- Pilot sim booth, ships operating manual in cockpit chair.
- Hydroponics garden, 50/50 dead or lush.
- Holo schematic table, war room. Plans hatched here using the schematics table will grant a +1 bonus to each participant’s actions until they fail a roll.
- EVA storage - remote drone operator chairs, eye goggles, connected to an external drone shed/pod.
- Torpedo room and launch tubes. d12 torpedoes, 10d6 ship damage (or system equivalent)
- Holo ship decoy projector room housing. Ship can cast Mirror Image, 1d4 + 2 images.
- Piece of a hyperspace portal, which are thought to be indestructible.
- Assimilant Temple room. Conversion booths, crucified half-machine half-Ancient priest screeches like hard drives breaking, ready to take confessions of disunity.
- Landing ramp / mud room. Boots, ponchos, hats, flashlights.
- Life support generator in more of a closet than a room. Firefights in here can (2-in-6) wreck life support.
- Space tree, living atmosphere generator. Firefights irrelevant, actual fire pretty bad. 66% has seeds.
- Space vampire lair.
- Power suit repair bay, drop chute. 5% power armor, otherwise can probably find a sweet helmet, power suit long johns.
- Space Gods Commune Chair. Surrounded by arcing electricity, shrill static amplifiers, subliminal chanting on repeat. Can sit and ask oracular question, then save or die from enlightenment / Space God yelling.
- Hangar, 2-seater fighter, local space only. HD 1+1, AC 4.
- Mining curtain and processing plant. The curtain is a giant fabric, several square km, designed to trap asteroid spalling, dust, and such during mining. Hyper-tough, can be used to make good AC 7 or AC 5 armor.
- Cybernetic operating theatre and robot surgeon.
- Robot therapist niche. Neo-brutalist hypnobehavorist. Quite effective if you can stick with it.
- Scrying pool. 1/day someone immersed in the pool can cast Wizard Eye (as per White Box or whatever) anywhere they’ve been before. Duration is as long as they can stay underwater.
- Ship tactical teleport, short range, sun gate generator. 20% working. Lets the ship teleport around a battlefield 1/day, out to some kind of useful tactical range.
- Bug room. 1) Giant ants 2) space roach mounts, EVA capable, 3) Mantis warrior drones 4) rust monster 5) spider ratings 6) repair slug (repairs ship damage, if in a room with an air leak it will sacrifice itself to plug it)
- Spider rating nest. 20% feral, otherwise potentially willing to work. 1d8+2 encountered, 3 hp each, save 12, +4 for saves of a technical nature. Lil metal antenna, radio comms.
- Minor hell portal, 66% there's a phasic demon (Bandits and Battlecruisers). 7HD, AC 4, half damage from regular weapons (magic and phasic weapons do damage as normal).
- Airlock to nonhuman dorm. 1) Ammonia vapor 2) Titan-esque - hyper cold, liquid methane pools 3) Venusian swamp 4) Airless, high rads
- Corridor filled with space kudzu. Slows movement, if hanging around for a turn or more, will try to envelope. HD 2, Str 13 if that matters for grappling.
- Telescope, star maps of unknown sectors.
- Crow’s nest. Stealth 2-person pod, equipped with passive sensors, macro binoculars, etc. Attached to a 1 AU / Big Space Hex of monofilament on a giant spool. Magnetically fired, takes a few hours to get out that far.
- Clone bank, 66% corrupted and spewing out something vile.
- Anti-ship lava launcher and external port.
- Blast door opening and closing rapidly. Save / dex check to slip through, else take 4d6 damage.
- Bondsman ship monitor, bank tachyon tap-comms (cosmic morse code), glass steel safe containing romance novels. Hidden inside a novel is one last 1000 credit chit.
- Edicts of space tyrant carved in steel plinths, 10’ in length, each weighs about 1.5 tons. Drop bay doors and a lifter arm.
- Micro submarine bay. 30% micro sub, holds 6, operates 15 hours underwater at a time, 3 HD. Diving gear.
- Wheeled APC bay, no APC. 1 loader exoskeleton, gives +2 STR bonus and does 1d8 damage in unarmed combat. Welder (1d10, 3 squirts of fuel), warning lights, beeps when backing up.
- Luxury pool, bar, lounge chairs, appropriate skeletons for the ship’s original crew.
- Sentient bomb room, 1 bomb (Harry) left, 66% nuts. Would crack the hulk in half, but anyone more than a room away shouldn’t take much damage.
- Zine library hidden in empty, dusty alcove in corridor. Anti-space tyrant, anti-space-government, pro-Eden Seeking, kind of anarchs-primitivist anti-sentient stuff. Illegal, probably quite valuable to some poseur somewhere.
- Chain dorm. Slave collars (explosive, 6d6 to wearer, no collateral damage), basically a dorm for enslaved crew.
- Drop pod for 4, converts to unpowered glider in atmosphere.
- Black Hole Temple, altar has a cube of annihilation on it, suspended by anti-grav stick-on pads.
- Innocuous corridor. Contains hidden smuggler compartments. 1-4) empty 5) ulfire gems, 1d20 x 100 credits each, 1d6. 6) 1d10 kg of spice, worth 750 credits a kg.
- Psi amplification chamber, allows psi users to use psi powers across depths of space. Sacrifice 1d10 hp to use offensive powers on other ships. Across from where someone would sit, you can find fragments of bone and tooth embedded in the wall, quite deeply.
- Favela of anarchist squatters, typically want scavengers to go the fuck away. Distrust scavengers with apparent good intentions, about as smart as the GM in terms of detecting bullshit.
- Jailbroken Nu-Tu booth with Ancient celebrity options, takes 1 turn for a full facial reconstruction. +1 to reaction rolls and morale of allies.
- 15 horse power 1938 Citroen in a stasis bubble. (World of Edena hoooo!)
- Bunk room, random data slates of old books, tacky rug. Mechanism under a bunk unlocks the floor panel under the rug, which leads down to Faallspek’s Trophy Room #11a. Contains some nice Endwater brandy worth 766 credits, and the Mask of the All Priest, worth 14k credits. Sellers would be identified immediately by foul magic, and hunted by his planetary regime of zealots.
- Gift shop. 10% leftover flamethrower.
- Automated restaurant, 66% food is now poison and immobile robot stewards throw it
- Corridor with shortcut vent
- Smoker alcove, size of phone booth, embedded in corridor.
- Corridor, diamondoid vending machine anchored, ray gun stuck mid-dispense. Last thing in there other than gum and anti radiation cigarettes.
- Anti pirate drone bay, 10% one left but possessed by Laser Moon
- Creepy mirror. 1/day can cast contact other plane, 33% creates evil doppelganger of user.
- Hover golf carts, can easily be used to drive around the ship
- Robo falconry training room - large, some boxy American Gladiator-style obstacles, 1d4 robot rabbits (programmed to run in an evasive pattern, largely straight. AC 5 MV 18). 1d2-1 robot falcons (hd 1+1, AC 4 MV 25 (flight), claws 1d4+1, 2 attacks / round)
- Gruel maker room. Ceramic bowl (300 lb, 8 hp) creates 50 lbs of gruel per day. At present hibernating, will come online if a living creature touches it. Possibly used to feed dungeon / space hulk denizens. Dungeon Moon reference!
RAY SHIELDED. Shields that do 1d6 damage on contact, typically remotely controlled via cockpit. Often some nearby wall-mounted controls could disable if you save, otherwise it just sets off an alarm and either automated security or a random encounter will head over. Or both.
Disaster Timers - because I just read through Index Card RPG before this, and it can be fun to have some kind of reason to hit the space hulk highlights as quickly as possible before Locust nanomachines turn everything into gray goo slag. (Thank you Strange Stars for that name and idea!)
1. Reactor leak
2. Reactor meltdown
3. Fire
4. Air leak getting worse
5. Space troll nest growing
6. Drifting into sun
7. Drifting into black hole, cannot exit orbit
8. Nearing Locust Zone
9. Nearing Space Pirate cove
10. Possession by laser moon
11. Art collective bombs
12. Space Tyrant micro-armada inbound
Conscripts Conceit: In between missions you sleep. That's when you may be rewarded for bringing back the ancient tech, rewarded with implants or knowledge, or you'll wake up and the boss has left you new gear. You died once, in a hulk - a space troll oozed out of a vent behind you and wrapped its clammy, rubbery hands around your neck. You awoke on the ship remembering, cloned. It happened too often to Piotr and the boss stopped bringing him back, brought in a new gene-line, 'something luckier'. You feel like you remember something, not doing this, not stuck in this loop. Sometimes in the hulks you see books, and remember sitting under a sun and reading one. No boss, no clock, no scavenging. But then it's time to hurry up and get back to the staging area, hurry and get back to sleep. Hurry or you'll be left behind.
