After+the+War+ +pre Layout+Preview
After+the+War+ +pre Layout+Preview
After+the+War+ +pre Layout+Preview
This is the plain text version of After the War for kickstarter backers, before layout for your initial reading pleasure. If you have any comments or
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Credits
Lead Creators
Jason Pitre - Game designer, layout, writing and editing
Alasdair Stuart - Lead writer and setting designer
John Adamus - Lead editor
Claudia Cangini - Lead Artist
Juan Ochoa - Lead Artist
Contributing Writers
Jacqueline Bryk
Mary Rose Valentine
Melody Watson
Elizabeth Chiapraditkul
Frances Rowat (Text and Editing)
Dr. Katherine Inskip
Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali
Sarah Saltiel
Kate Bullock
Alex Roberts
Jay Iles
Erika Chappell
Kira Magrann
Sarah Richardson
Fraser Ronald (Example of Play)
Additional Illustration
Eric Quigley
Tithi Luadthong
Toma Feizo Gas
Jeff Brown
Damien Holder
Chapter 1 - Introduction
The Song of the Stars
Humanity has always heard the siren call of the unknown. We reached for the stars: building ships, stations, and colonies in the outer dark. Against
all odds, first contact went impossibly well and we took our first steps out into the larger universe. We met our teachers, the Permancer, and the
other alien species that fill the void. The utopian dream of humanity exploring the universe as the equal of its peers was born. Then we heard The
Song. It’s a sentient melody encoded into atoms, a dark matter drum beat of intelligence and hunger. The Song stole our free will, enslaving our
minds and using us to spread like a memetic virus. The Song raised every species’ basest instincts to a crescendo, and humanity bowed in
zealous servitude.The unified multi-species Fleet became a battlefield, as humans aboard every ship and on every world were caught up in The
Song. Entire nations of humanity rose, as one, to convert the rest of the universe into members of the alien hivemind. Each ship taken became
part of the Great Choir, a colossal, mobile transmitter array designed to boost the strength of The Song in any system it jumped into. Worlds sang.
Worlds burned. Ships, worlds, and societies shattered. Those who survived were given the choice to fight and kill those they loved, or let the
universe join the hive mind. Our salvation was also our destruction. Black Sky Industries developed a distributed AI based on Illuvian technology,
as a memetic counter-virus intended to nullify the Song. This Tormenta virus worked too well, transforming a third of those that heard in into violent
and murderous monsters. Black Sky scientists knew the risks, but were willing to pay the price. The Great Choir chased the refugee flotilla from the
ruins of Earth to the distant world of Polvo. That is where Tormenta was unleashed and transmitted to each ship’s onboard nanoforges. One by
one, the Great Choir vessels fell. The Tormenta spread to every ship and world the Fleet had visited. On orders, the sentient virus killed itself on
the evening of its only day of life. The war started with a single voice rising from a trillion throats. It ended with the quiet, numb sobbing of the last
humans standing.
Offering Shelter
After the War is about the aftermath of a galactic war, and the people who survived those traumatic events. The game is here to give you the
tools to tell those stories productively and safely. The game can often go to dark and vulnerable places, as the Song and Tormenta offer emotional
and physical violence to their victims. Some content in a game can trigger discomfort or past trauma, so be considerate. Make yourself aware of
everyone’s boundaries. Respect them. ### The X Card John Stavropoulos presented a tool known as the X-Card as a way of keeping games
comfortable and fun for everyone involved. The first time you play the game, introduce the X-Card by reading the following text for the group
before play: I’d like your help to make this game fun for everyone. If anything makes anyone uncomfortable in any way … [draw X on an index
card] … just lift this card up, or simply tap it [place card at the centre of the table]. You don’t have to explain why. It doesn’t matter why. When we lift
or tap this card, we simply edit out anything X-Carded. And if there is ever an issue, anyone can call for a break and we can talk privately. I know it
sounds funny but it will help us play amazing games together. Please help make this game fun for everyone. Thank you!” For more information
about the X-Card, check out the full explanation at http://tinyurl.com/x-card-rpg.
Going Dark
This is a game of personal horror, where memetic forces twist our minds and trauma lies around every corner. Going Dark is a custom tool for After
the War which is specifically designed to produce those kinds of horror experiences while enhancing player safety. Please note that this safety tool
itself can only be used with the positive and enthusiastic consent of all the players (including the GM), as unreliable memory and psychological
trauma can often be rather serious. At any point in time during play, anyone at the table can say the ritual phrase “Then Things Go Dark”. By
saying this phrase, we fade to black and assume that what happens next occurs off-camera. This is similar to another safety tool, known as a Veil.
When this occurs, there are a few additional things to note. No characters remember what happened next in that scene. Perhaps it was a traumatic
event that their minds have buried our of self protection. Maybe the Song drowned out the memories with chorister influence. Maybe your
character just went out and got blackout drunk. Something happened to hide the events that happened during that time.
Characters might wake the next day with holes in their memories and blood on their hands. As a player, you have control over any leftover
consequences of what happened during this hidden event. You could pretend that nothing happened during that event, or introduce lasting
personal consequences depending on how you feel comfortable. It's often best to slowly narrate how certain fragmentary memories resurface as
time passes, and consider using flashbacks as a narrative tool to explore these sensitive events.
Words of Hate
Humanity has a long history of prejudice, discrimination, and hatred which has persisted even despite the Galactic Union’s moderating influence.
That said, we don’t want to harm the players at the table, so expressing these real-world social issues requires a bit of finesse. The first rule is that
That said, we don’t want to harm the players at the table, so expressing these real-world social issues requires a bit of finesse. The first rule is that
you should never use real-world slurs related to race, gender identity, sexuality, ability, or faith. We are not here to hurt each other at the table,
and human societies of 2245 have moved beyond these. There are slurs in-setting of course, but they have drifted to be nearly unrecognizable by
current standards. The easiest way to handle words of hate is to use something called the Bracket Technique. When I am running a session, I
would say something like: “You are only defending them because you are a (slur for belters)”.
I actually say the words “slur for belters” instead of using an actual slur at the table, and it gives enough fictional distance to avoid hurting folks at
the table. It also means that you can make more complex statements like “racist joke about Permancer reproduction” where no one at the table
might know how such a thing could be done.
Setting Terminology
Terrans are those peoples born and raised on Earth, the cradle of humanity and ancient throne of countless cultures. The planet was crowded,
messy, and the first home of our species.
Martians were colonists who settled on the red planet and strove to shape in our image. This planet was fractured by war, and unified by a single
megacorporation known as Marscorp which ruled the planet.
Belters are impoverished, independent-minded and foolhardy peoples who settled in the asteroid belt, Jovian moons, and isolated stations
throughout the solar system.
Permancers are an alien species known for their stoicism, the protective natures, and for leading the Galactic Union. The first impression many
humans have of the Permancers is as angry, bipedal horses. The Permancers are the only species that appears to be immune to the Song’s
psychic influence.
Ursa are a bear-like alien species known for their Jovial nature and for an obsession with the number 4. They nearly always work as packs of 4
individuals due to their cultural traditions.
Rasgado and the Fundar are two halves of the same alien species. Their peoples were struck by a brutal bioweapon, so contact between a
Rasgado and a Fundar \ leads to both of their deaths.
Mercurio are an alien species whose bodies are constantly in flux. They are shape-shifters and dopplegangers obsessed with discovering new
cultures and identities.
Illuvia are a non-corporeal alien species who appear like clouds of glitter floating in the air. They are ruthlessly intelligent and smug, taking pity on
those primitives stuck wearing "meat-suits".
The Song is an intelligent melody encoded in atoms which acts as a memetic virus. The Song seeks to steal the freewill of peoples and assimilate
them into the hivemind known as the Choir.
Tormenta is an artificial memetic counter-virus created by humanity. This force seeks to turn individuals into rage-filled, violent agents of chaos &
death.
Polvo, also known as Dirt, is an isolated moon where the Terrans, Martians, Belters, and Aliens have come to build new lives together. It's also
harboring agents of the Song and Tormenta, who seek to infect those few survivors of the war.
Rules Terminology
This game includes a number of specific mechanics and procedures. Each is detailed later in the book, but here are some quick definitions.
Belief
A subjective, controversial declaration that a main character holds. As a character, you believe in these statements completely, and will defend
your perspectives. As a player, you look at these beliefs more critically, seeking out evidence that confirms or refutes each Belief during play. You
gain Insight when you get confront your Beliefs, which allow you to share Discovery and Growth. * Creating Beliefs: pg. XX * Changing Beliefs: pg.
XX * Sample Beliefs: pg. xx
Conflict
When two people in a Scene disagree on what should happen next, it triggers a Conflict. During this Conflict, each participant declares what they
want to happen and rolls a number of dice based on which traits are relevant. Whoever gets the highest total, gets to narrate the outcome, and
suffers a point of Strain. * Conflicts: pg. xx
Conviction
When a player chooses to fully accept or reject a Belief during a moment of growth, they create a Conviction. These are subjective, declarative
statements which they consider to be objective truths of the universe. Convictions are permanent traits which help the main character win certain
Conflicts. * Creating Convictions: pg. xx * Convictions in Conflicts: pg. xx
Insight
Players receive Insight when their main character is faced with evidence that supports or rejects their Beliefs. Each character has an Insight track,
and reaching certain milestones on that track triggers moments of Discovery or Growth. * Receiving Insight: pg. xx * Discovery: pg. xx * Growth:
pg.xx
Moment
A small interlude outside of normal Scenes, where a limited number of main characters are involved. When a moment of Discovery is triggered, you
learn more about the main characters while removing points of Strain. When a moment of Growth is triggered, the main character accepts or
rejects one of their Beliefs, gaining a Conviction and a replacement Belief. Corruption occurs when The Song or Tormenta twist one of the main
character’s Beliefs. Grief occurs when a main character is retired from play. * Discovery: pg. xx * Growth: pg. xx * Corruption: pg. xx * Grief: pg. xx
Scene
Scenes are focused, dramatic events where many main characters interact to discover the answer to a key Question. Scenes always include
collaborative roleplaying, and may also include one or more Conflicts. The point of a Scene is to confront your Beliefs in order to gain Insight. *
Establishing Scenes: pg. xx * Playing Scenes: pg. xx
Strain
Strain represents the accumulated stress, harm, and trauma a main character might suffer during play. You receive Strain to reroll your dice during
a conflict, or whenever you win a Conflict. Each point of Strain reduces your character’s chances of success in future Conflicts, and accumulating
too much can lead to retirement of a character. * Strain in Conflicts: pg. xx * Removing Strain: pg. xx
Trait
Traits represent various experiences, skills, or identities which help someone win Conflicts. Main characters traits include Origins (where they came
from), War Stories (what they experienced), and Professions (what they do now). Each trait has a list of situations where it would normally apply,
which you can add to during play. * Origins: pg. xx * War Stories: pg.xx * Professions: pg.xx
Where were you from? I was born and raised on Hellas Plantia, in one of the southern polar domes. My father worked in childcare in the crèche,
so I had the rare luxury of a parent watching over me as I grew up. All I remember of my mother was tugging on her dark dreadlocks with my tiny
hands. Father said she had left for a job with the Terraform Division, and that was it. I was always the best student around, and found myself
placed on the management track at an early age. By the time others were going on their first dates, I had an internship with Minerva Division. By
the time others started families, I was auditing subsidiaries and liquidating assets for the benefit of MarsCorp. It was easy work, and the Corp paid
me well enough for my troubles. Life was corporate politics by day and a vicious drug habit by night. I told myself that it was fine. I deserved it.
There was nothing wrong with a bit of Red Sand to ease the tension headaches. It was medicinal, or so I wanted to believe.I told myself a thousand
lies to avoid the truth - I was a junkie.
How did you experience the war? Well, I was coordinating the purchase of a mothballed Fundar space station. No. Sorry. You deserve the
truth. Truth is, I don’t remember any of it. It’s got to be one of the most terrifying feelings for any woman to have. One moment, I was sampling
some product on a transport shuttle for a business trip. The next thing I knew, I found myself lying on the floor of the cargo bay of a fleet vessel in
a degrading orbit over Polvo. The entire war was swallowed by this vast hole in my memory. I have no idea where I was, what I did, or what
happened to me. The only thing I know is that it was bad. Fleet cleaned me up. I think they saved my life in the process. They gave me some kind
of hope for a better future for all of us, and kept me from focusing on my selfish needs. They gave me the tools to survive, and a goal worthy of my
talents.
What are you doing now? Fleet is trying to make a real difference. They want to rebuild the critical union infrastructure so the trade networks
can be restored. They want new medical stations to handle the wounded. They want to re-establish democratic norms and diplomatic ties between
the various species. Fleet is our last and best chance for peace.
Thanks to Fleet, I have a chance to be a part of something that matters. I’m working as their agent on Polvo to manage humanitarian efforts and
aid programs. I want the people of Polvo to know that Fleet is looking out for them. Together, we can build a better galaxy for our children.
Krisha Chowdhury
Belief: Fleet is our redemption*
Belief: Drugs are a weapon*
Origin:Martian, Minerva Division
War Story:Ouverture, The First Chorus
Profession:Builder, Agent
Where were you from? Earth, originally. Or Terra, as I guess we’re calling it now. North America, the northern end of the Appalachian mountain
range. In the foothills, though. My parents were animal farmers -- sheep and goats mostly. Sometimes we grew corn, if the weather was kind. We
had an orchard too, apples and sour cherries. I wonder if it’s still there, if any of the seeds survived. I was six when we left, but I still remember the
taste of those apples. They were always clean and sweet.
When you were six? That’s early. When you have to watch the weather for your livelihood, you learn to know when storms are coming. The
Song was the biggest storm we’d ever heard. You could hear it coming from light-years away. The newscasters talked about it like it was something
on the other side of the universe at first, but we knew better. Storms from Canada could cross the lake in minutes and smash up your windows if
you got careless. Nor’easters on Earth -- Terra, sorry -- would rage against your house, but were mostly just noise if you kept the fire going and
the roof in good repair. Summer storms, though, would throw themselves against your walls from the inside and outside unless you kept a window
cracked to equalize pressure. It wasn’t just my family, though. The McAllisters, the Allens, even the Harrisons who owned the big factory farm down
the Mohawk Valley, they all saw it coming. People think farmers are stupid, but we’re not. We learned to read the winds as well as books.
The winds? It’s a figure of speech. The winds of change, I guess. We were some of the first people out.
Is your family still farming, but you’re not? They are, yes. I was of more use to the government. See, I learned to read the winds -- but in
space, there’s no winds over the grasses. It took us years to get here, so I learned to read the winds of people, how they move and change against
each other. I finished my education in one of the first schools on Polvo. I saw the mushroom cloud from Covenant Yard. I already knew how to read
the twitch of an eyebrow, the inflection in someone’s voice. Tormenta and the Song are both subtle, see. The howling zombies were just cannon
fodder. My job is finding the pressure from inside that might send our entire house crashing down. They like pitting us against each other. If
someone’s acting odd, they must be infected, right? But what if they’re not?
How do you tell? [she smiles and gestures out her window, where the storm rages over Covenant Yard] I keep the windows cracked.
Phoebe Sparks
Belief:Words are weapons, deadly as guns
Belief:Change is survival
Origin:Terran, Agricultural Community
War Story: Silence, Echoes
Profession:Leader, Diplomat
Interview 3 - Palmer Vaisey
Recorded by Melody Watson at the Red Dust Consortium HQ
Where were you from? New Berlin, Mars — an old hab-dome in the Borealis Basin. Never mind the name. I’ve seen pictures of the old Berlin and
they don’t look anything alike. But every Martian has a dream, and building a better city was ours. Growing up, everyone I knew worked in
Cornerstone Division. Engineers, mechanics, welders, architects. People who take nothing and make it into something worth having. But I was
better with people and ideas than my hands. Got myself a job supervising an assembly line and eventually ended up managing the whole damn
precinct. Things were good. MarsCorp was at its peak and we were all riding high on the wave of success. I believed we were going to make a
world better than any other.
How did you experience the war? The war was a bad time. Not just in the obvious ways. Those who escaped the Song, we nearly lost our
hope. Our faith in a better tomorrow, our faith in MarsCorp. And MarsCorp had done everything for us — fed us since we were children, treated us
when we were sick, housed us and gave us purpose. Without them, we had nothing. I was lucky. Star Lift got me and a couple of other New
Berliners off the planet before the Choristers broke through. But I saw the footage. I wish I hadn't. You bet I signed up to help build a weapon
against the Song. We were turning asteroids into bombs. Basic exo-mining work, honestly. The hard part was filling them with their human payload.
Have you ever been up close to someone with Tormenta? They... they don't move like people. They're like an imitation of a person from an old
animation. And I recognised one of them from back home. I got too close and I think she recognised me too. I still don't know how she broke free.
She didn't make it far but, fuck, it's easy to forget how much blood is in a human body. [recording goes silent for 90 seconds] I, uh, I'm sorry. I just
need a moment. I don't talk about this very much.
**What are you doing now? ** I keep busy. Don't sleep much anymore. I don't like where my mind goes when I let it rest. Now I'm Director of
Communications for the Red Dust Consortium. Where there's people, there's commerce. That's why some of the towns down this end of Polvo set
themselves up as corps, with shareholders and boards instead of citizens and councils. A little while back they merged, creating the Consortium.
We're mostly Martians. We remember how good it was back in the glory days. Mostly, I'm responsible for our multimedia content. It's an exciting
time! We're investing in tech that's going to spread our brand further than ever. Why do I care? Because we need to remember. I don't mean the
war. Not the bad parts at least. We need to remember that we won - that we won by making hard decisions and being a part of something larger. If
we can do that again, the future's going to be better than we ever could have imagined.
Where are you from? I grew up on Earth, from a disintegrating family that lived just outside of Chicago. It wasn’t always that way. I remember a
time when we were happy as a family, and even our frequent political debates were good-spirited. My parents were as paranoid as they come,
though, and I was lucky they let me go to the ‘indoctrinating’ public school. Our family fell apart in last few years before the war, as love gave way
to hate and to anger. Then, the war took what was left of my family and tore it to shreds.
How did you experience the war? I started losing my patience with my parents as I became more independent and began to value trust. My dad
trusted no one and always ranted about how the government was colluding with the aliens. He even built his own receiving equipment to listen in
on transmissions to Earth and lost his job for his troubles. I think the first rational thing my mother did was leaving him. But she didn’t take me. I
think she suspected me too. In my last few days at home, my dad changed. His crazed ranting, now more frequent, was punctuated by strange
humming. Only two or three notes here and there, but he had never done it before, and the tune was strange, intriguing, and otherworldly. I read
enough on the feeds to put two and two together about what he was picking up on his receivers. A day or two later, warnings and evacuation
orders were sent out. I was in my room blasting music on noise-canceling headphones and trying to figure out what to do. I wasn’t sure if my dad
would be willing to leave, but he approached me first with a creepy smile on his face. We went to the closest evacuation point together and I was on
edge the entire time. It was so unlike him to follow the government’s directions that I knew The Song had him. I didn’t dare ditch my headphones. I’d
noticed that he seemed to change when he got away from the receivers so I tried taking the headphones off, but he hummed another note or two
and I jammed them back on. The Song was already in his head. During the boarding process, I made sure to get jostled away from him. I couldn’t
be around him anymore. He tried to stay near me, but we boarded different evacuation shuttles. Now I’m here, on Polvo, finally my own person. It’s
a feeling I’ve been missing for years.
What are you doing now?There are so many organizations that want Polvo to be another insignificant pawn for their empires. But we can build a
new civilization where autonomy and cooperation aren’t mutually exclusive. Us refugees are more than Dirt. I’m trying to organize a regional council
of leaders as a framework of a future government, so we can start building ourselves up. If we let someone else do it for us, they control us. If they
lure us in and we give our autonomy over, how are they any better than The Song? I am trying to lead and organize the people so we can build our
own foundation for the rise of a new civilization.
Alex Lunett
Belief: Alliances are better than subjugation.
Belief: Self-Governance is a human right.
Origin: Terran, Political Community
War Story: Silence, Rendered Aid
Where are you from? I grew up on Terra – Bangkok, Thailand – skyscrapers and filth for as far as the eye can see. For me, it was perfect.
Between the dusty streets and bright lights there were places of pristine silence; quiet noodle stands, hidden monasteries, lazy avenues. For all
the bustle of the city I always felt a supreme sense of calm. My mother died when I was 10, and I became a monk following the tradition. Most kids
only do it for the funeral ceremony but I remained there for eight years. My conviction didn’t come from faith, I’m not sure I am even a believer now,
but from the time spent on introspection. Introspection to finally lose a sense of self and focus on higher thoughts, I’m not sure I really did that at
all, but it brought me peace.
How did you experience the war? It was brutal and hopeless, so I tried to do work that would make things better. I was a therapist to the
survivors, the soldiers, and the people who mutilated themselves so they couldn’t hear the song. It felt like for every wound I patched up, the Great
Choir would rip open five more and pour pain into my patients through that infernal song. I’d lost that peace I cherished so long ago and I was
about to give up. That was when command offered me an opportunity to be, “an invaluable asset to the war effort.” In that moment I felt hope
again.. That’s how I met Francis Duffy – the man who saved us all. My job was seemingly simple; speak with Duffy and perform the psychological
tests obtain Duffy’s consent for hosting Tormenta. Many people forget this is something we actually did. Since the end of the war people are so
busy hailing Duffy as a hero, they conveniently forget that he wasn’t actually a willing participant. He was so drunk that I doubt he even knew what
he agreed to, or perhaps he didn’t care until it was too late. We were so very convinced what we were doing was right. The first moment I realized
what I’d done was when Duffy’s screams pierced through steel walls while he was uploaded with the Anti-Song.
What are you doing now? I need to better myself if I am really going to help people. Before the war I heard people comment about how doctors
think they’re gods, but I am a darker thing. What do you call someone who messes around with people’s minds? Am I a devil? Even devils can heal
people. To pick up the pieces of broken memories and piece them back together. I just want to feel right again. I’m older, wiser, and I realize now
that there is no quick fix to anything. Slowly it feels like I am crawling back to that place – 10 years old and entering the monastery for the first time.
Nat Pratikorn
Belief: Self-reflection brings understanding
Belief: Every life is important
Origin: Terran, Faithful Community
War Story: Dissonance, The Hero
Where were you from? The Belt. Parents planned against a kid but the pills didn't work, and they wouldn't sign me over to MarsCorp. Started
flying our mining skiff--the Stendahl's Promise--at fifteen. Wasn't legal, but we fixed the pilot logs, and I clocked enough hours to start paying down
the company debt. Lost my leg and dad died in a space grit shower. Other belters got us back but the Promise needed repairs. My cousin Orsina
fixed our maintenance logs so MarsCorp couldn't deny the death benefits. Patched the Promise up, shared what we could with those who got us
home. Orsina taught me Bradbury. Old Earth writer, before space flight. Told stories that ended with Earth gone and Mars being where we moved
past the worst of what people did to each other. You seen MarsCorp? All us little lights out in the black and they're sucking us dry on contracts and
margins. Bradbury weeps. So MarsCorp probes got lost and their systems broke and their scales weighed heavy and paid out extra and we'd
share it round. We were close to getting caught, when the war started.
How did you experience the war? War, hah. leaking massacre. Scrappy little ships what couldn't cross a galaxy on the Oort Line, and what
came for us-- Orsina and me stripped the Promise down to fuel and power, clad on extra armour, swapped scanners for weapons. I flew, she was
gunner. Got through a Choristor hull, but half our weapons were blown clean off. Rest stopped firing. Wanted to think they'd run dry. We weren't
getting back anyway. Gearing up to run the Promise right into the Chorister's guts when Orsina-- Didn't hear her coming. Was wearing Bashton's
Ears. She used a medkit sedative. Woke up too late. People talk about Earth and Mars. Not about what it was like out in the black, after. Tatters of
the Line stretching all the way to the belt. The frozen air, leaking. Understand it. Known her since we were too young to work. If we'd have been
dying over nothing, fine, but... Promise could've slowed that Choristor. Haven't seen Orsina since I dropped her on the Calabrese. Don't know if
she's on Dirt or off on a Permancer ship or what. Haven't checked. Got nothing to say to her, now.
What are you doing now? Fixing shit. chuckles Haven't had time to take Promise off-world since I got here. Dirt's pretty easy. Breathe free, step
outside free... even water's free, just leave enough for others. So much give here. Sloppy or unlucky can kill you, but the belt taught me a lot that's
useful. Sinkhole at Jadoc? My filter masks kept the kids breathing long enough to get fished out. Webster flood? I welded the bridge that held. It's
not just scrabbling out here. It's building. Dirt's... We've got a chance here. Something new, like Bradbury dreamed we could be on Mars. Fleet's
holding on. Dirt's building up. Kids from the sinkhole're doing okay. Couple still have bad dreams, imagine they heard things. Dirt's home now,
right? It's ours, free and clear, thank the Permancer. Sure they meant well. Only. Have dreams myself sometimes. Bradbury said things about free
dirt.
Cortesa Singh
Where were you from? My earliest memories are of 21 Lutetia, back before it became a debris field. Ma Jameson had a gang of five of us, small
enough to get in deep and lay probes for the drill-bots. She kept us out of sight, and we got fed most days. After she disappeared - bought her
way off-rock, or fell afoul of a Marshall or another miner, I don’t know which - we did what we had to to stay alive. Stole air tanks and slurry-packs.
Sabotaged the drill-bots when they got too close. We made it a whole forty-four days before turning on each other. I don’t like to remember what
came next, and I can’t remember what came after... that. But somehow, I ended up in a hospital pod on the Glorious Message: nine years old,
legless from the knees down, and missing several months’ worth of memories. The Padres fixed me up pretty good, and in the decade that
followed, they gave me their faiths, a first name, and an education. Two of the three stuck, and no-one really minded that I never found a Calling
that suited me. I trained as a medic instead, specialising in life support and medical prostheses. I had good friends there, before the war.
How did you experience the war? The Message didn’t last long, but a few of us got out. I ended up seconded to the Tormenta project. Basic
surgeries and maintenance, low-pressure life support prep for the volunteers, amplifier attachments, organ bypass. Other things, too, if a
volunteer’s courage failed. I knew better than to ask too many questions. What we did, it needed doing. I told myself that every damn day, choking
it down with whatever platitudes of scripture I could stomach. The volunteers my team sent out, not one of them died before they needed to. They’d
chosen to be there, and we were duty-bound to make sure they saw that through, no matter how much they screamed and begged. We held their
hands and thanked them for their service, then we caged their crippled minds in a prison of their flesh. By the time they were ready for loading
onto the shuttles, most couldn’t seem to sense anything beyond their own suffering. I tried to believe that was a blessing, but all too often one of
the volunteers would meet my eyes and I’d know. The Padres are wrong. There’s no grace in that kind of suffering. And there’s certainly no
dispensation for all the things we did.
What are you doing now? Still saving lives, supposedly, but even with my background there’s a limit to what a wreck runner can do. I scavenge
whatever I can, go where I’m needed, and keep my eyes open. Maybe one day I’ll find a purpose to it all, or a god I can believe in, but I don’t hold
out much hope. Maybe it’ll be something better than damnation... I don’t hold out much hope for that, either. But Polvo’s given me friends again. I
guess that’s something?
Integrity ‘Teg’ Soh, the prosthetic paramedic
Belief: Every single one of us is damned.
Belief: Friendship never lasts.
Origin: Belter, Steward (Padre)
War Story: Tormenta, The Chase
Profession: Builder, Wreck Runner
Where were you from? Nowhere particularly notable, I assure you. Mother was a professor of xenobiology, a controversial subject, even then.
Father was an artist and a prolific if largely unpublished, author. We traveled across the continent like nomads, wherever mother could find a
teaching post or Father could find a gallery willing to display his unique style of art. By happenstance, I was born in Yaounde, Cameroon, three
weeks ahead of schedule in the bathroom of the Musee La Blacktitude. You may have heard of my father. He was known simply as Askia? He drew
or painted his dreams, all yellows, oranges and reds, the annihilation of Terra. Some called him a prophet. Others called him a harbinger. His
entire collection of paintings and sketches has been stored in the Polvo archives. For this, I am grateful because I can barely recall him. Or Mother.
Shortly before we fled Terra, I received a package with my father’s writings. It’s some of the most lovely, yet lonely and painful poetry I’ve ever
read. There was also a single letter to me, dated some eleven years earlier, from my mother. How coincidental… no… portentous, that both my
parents were immune to The Song. This presented certain dangers, so for my protection they sent me away to friends in Egypt when I was eight
years old. I haven’t seen them since. Uncles Lail and Tahir raised me with as much love as I would've gotten from my parents. They saw to my
every need, and being great believers in education sent me to boarding schools around the globe until my own affliction became manifest. Then,
they brought me home and hired the best tutors to educate me until I gained admittance to the University of Cairo.
How did you experience the War? I was one of the The Lucky Few. Yes, one of the twelve who not only created but launched the anti-song. I
was also despised and suspect among my peers. Don’t look so surprised. By the time we launched, my visions were no secret and neither was the
fact that I am the child of two people with blessed immunity to The Song. I am the aberration they needed. Have you ever hated a thing you
needed? Ever hated a thing you loved? It is a strange and ugly dichotomy. I spent the majority of the War alone in my cabin. I slept there. I ate
there. I prayed there. I did my work there. It kept the peace.
What are you doing now? I'm still alone, mostly. I receive visitors on occasion from those who believe I have the special sight. I do have visions,
but I don't believe I can tell them anything they don't already truly know. And, I am ill. Cancer, it seems. I'll get treatment in due time. It's just that the
tumors seem to be speaking to me.
Where were you from? My family is a long line of farmers. I hated it. I never understood why they dedicated their lives to a bunch of leaves. My
dad, he….. sorry….. he always dragged me on walks through the agricultural domes on Mars. He’d touch each plant and call it by name… as if he
was saying hello to an old friend. Sorry, this… he…. it’s a hard memory for me. He was brought from Earth to fill Mars with plant life. Most of my life
was spent training to work in the Terraform Division alongside him. He would always say to me, “Maxie, you’ve gotta understand that plants hold
the key to life. They’ve been around so much longer than we have. Doesn’t matter that they can’t speak, they communicate with each other just the
same--- all life is connected like that.” I… I can’t say that I really listened to him. I wish I had. How did you experience the war? I got infected in
the earlier waves of the Song. Like most, my time infected is a blur. Like when your eyes try to focus on one thing and you feel like you should be
able to see it, if you just strain a little harder, but no matter how hard you try, it stays just out of focus. Sometimes I’ll see people on Polvo, and
they’ll look so familiar, as if they were a part of me. I’ll know we shared the Song. Those are the people that I stay away from. No offense to them, I
just… I may not remember much but I know that the things that we did were horrible beyond compare. My family got infected with the Song at the
same time. There was peace in that, I think. We stayed together even when we lost, well… ourselves. Tormenta worked on me. I came to in a
makeshift hospital ward that some of the survivors had made on our ship. My mother was sitting right beside me. My father and my little sister
though, they…. I…. Sorry, I don’t think I can talk about this anymore. What are you doing now? My mother and I live on the outskirts of our
community. She just wanted to move on and she’s found some people that she can spend time with… and I’m happy for her. She doesn’t approve
of my work. But I know the truth. The Song is alive, not just in dark corners and the wild-- it’s still inside all of us. It lies dormant but it’s still there,
and it always has been. I’ve taken up my father’s work now. I’ve been studying the plants here-- the xenobiology is unlike any other that I’ve ever
seen. I think that studying the plant networks is the only way to understand how the Song works, how it spreads. I’m working on building model of
human networks based off of my findings. The Song will come back, and I will be ready this time.
Where were you from? I grew up in Six Nations and went to school in Hamilton, Ontario. It’s part of Canada. We have one of the best medical
schools around. But that’s not what most people want to know when they ask where I’m from and where I went to school. I’m not your average
medic. My education took me all over the world, to some extent. The minute I breathed the word “healer” I was sent to the academy. The only way
to truly study medicine, and travel to where I wanted to exist, was to gain citizenship. My auntie knew this. So I went. I would always find some way
to fix whatever problem I faced.. From Traditional Medicine to Qi Gong to Ayurvedic to Traditional Chinese Medicine to medical acupuncture and
neurokinetic therapy, I did it all. From enigmatic energy therapy to the most pure science modern medicine could offer. Maybe it’s why I heard the
Song so well and understood it so easily, it wasn’t that new to me. Music healing was something I learned in college. The Song was like that, but
different.
How did you experience the war? From… the wrong side. This is the question people really want to know that everyone seems keen to silence.
No one wants to remember. We straighten our shoulders and say we can’t remember, that the Tormenta blew it out of our brains. Trauma has the
best stealth I’ve ever seen. I was on Feynman Station, stationed there with my now ex-wife. I’m a medic in so many ways, but Feynman was an easy
ride. Not too many injuries, healthy bodies and healthy minds and healthy hearts. It was a station designed for innovation and invention. Saying
they discovered the Song is wrong; they were the first victims. You don’t discover your partner is abusive, your partner hurts you and you learn
pain. The Tormenta spread through my mind electrically, synapses firing, nerves twitching, and the brain just being engulfed. It didn’t hurt. It’s that
moment when you think there’s another stair and there isn’t. Momentary suspension of time. Until you wake up a monster.
What are you doing now? Healing. It’s what I was made for. The Song has come and gone, but I can still feel its rhythm. It lets me lock into those
patterns that still sway the mind and tug at the heart. I can’t heal the trauma, not really, but I can help the body and the mind release what it’s
holding from when it was enraptured. The body has a natural rhythm to it. The song disrupts it and makes it match the song. Every heartbeat,
blink, and breath is to the song. Tormenta disrupts it long enough the body fights back. But it remains. So I stop the rhythm and reset it. And I hold
silence. There’s no point in speaking about what I remember or how I feel today because my fellow survivors aren’t ready. When they are, the wave
of silence will break and a new song will be born. A song of healing.
Namid Souliere
Belief: Healing through community
Belief: The song lingers
Origin: Terran, Citizen Community
War Story: Overture, First Contact
Profession: Veteran, Medic
Where were you from? You might not believe it, but I was born on an asteroid. My parents were miners, part of a very strong 256-square pack.
My early years are just a mess of searching, confusion, never feeling like anyone was really attending to me. I wasn't happy until I grew up, and 7
friends and I broke off into our own pack. We booted around for a few lazy years, living on nothing, sleeping with each other and being as stupid as
you really ought to be at that age. I felt called to family the moment I met my daughter, Hyvä. Her birth-mother Mielikki and I were linked in Häät
soon after. Hyvä's star-mother was with us until she passed, and we were a three-legged dog until that sooty old beast Rusko showed up one day.
How did you experience the war? The four of us were young and full of love, convinced the war couldn't touch us. It did, literally, at its
crescendo: we were knocked out of Polvo's orbit as the Great Choir rained down onto the surface. To be honest, we were pretty wrecked after
our... how shall I put this... hasty landing? Hyvä almost didn't make it. Fixing the ship didn't matter at that point, especially with all those humans
milling around, infected with Ukko knows what, desperate and scared. Nothing mattered besides keeping the four of us together and safe. There
are jokes for situations like that, you know. They say the best time to laugh is when you have no reason to. Well, I don’t have any jokes for you. I
remember that time only with a terrible, overwhelming fear.
What are you doing now? I liked The Doorman's Rest, at first. Hardscrabble folks, dragging each other into an uncertain future. A Padre told me
this verse, something about beating swords into ploughshares. That's where they say my people came from, you know - the Otava cluster of stars,
the Plough. There we were turning a whole fleet of swords into ploughshares, and every other survival tool besides; it all seemed to fit. But, the
politics break my heart. Humans would rather fight over three chairs than build a fourth one. We decided to get some distance before those
ploughshares turned back into swords. We keep to ourselves mostly, out in the boneyards. I can’t stay mad at a human, but I can’t think of them as
harmless anymore, either. I’m happy to be in a quad that loves being out there, exploring, hauling, sniffing around and striking gold every once in a
while. In our line of work, you really feel like you’ve earned what you get. Even when it isn’t much. We love each other and we back each other up.
And every once in a while, we make the trip into town together. My friend runs a bar in town, says he doesn’t get why we live like this, hand to
mouth. We get by just fine, there’s more to survival than just what our hands do.
Belief: You survive with what’s in your heart, not what’s in your hands.
Belief: The bigger the group, the bigger the problems.
Origin: Alien, Ursa
War Story: Silence, The First Town
Profession: Builder, Salvager
Where were you from? Wherever people are! Sure, I can trace the trail of my life all the way back to the quicksilver waters of Mercurio, but
you’ve never met a Doppel if you think that’s what defines me. I was a traveller. Sometimes I’d be the pilot taking ships from port to port; other times
I’d be cargo, wanting to soak in the ambiance of the passenger hold. Why? Because every place I’d visit, I’d find someone living in a whole new
way. I’d seek out the fringes, the avant-garde, the churches and bars, looking for someone I’d never seen before. I probably make it sound
romantic, but really I was an addict. I was so focused on finding and becoming novelty, then I’d wring it dry and find something else. Before too long
I found I ended up with no assets, no family, no roots.
How did you experience the war? I tried to keep it at a distance. Other cultures found the Choristers terrifying, but for us it was utter oblivion.
Not just losing will, but losing the ability to change. I’ve seen Doppels who were taken by it - but only from a distance. They’re locked in one
identical form still, and I don’t know what’s more terrifying - that they can’t change, or that they don’t want to change. Where was I? Ah, yes, the
war. I fled deeper and deeper into Human space, begging lifts on ships or piloting others if I had to. We all know that wasn’t enough. I was on Earth
when it became clear even the centre could not hold, and as luck would have it my ship was still in orbit. Belonged to a merchant called Davlan Ort
who’d hired me to bring them the last leg in from Jupiter. They wanted to be the first one aboard, of course, but their heart gave out - they made
me captain as they died. I put on their face when I fly, to remember. It was chaos and panic, but I got as many folks from that starport aboard as I
could before the Fleet arrived and destroyed everything. It was too many. We had to make some real hard choices in the journey out, and it broke
my heart.
What are you doing now? In a way, I’m lucky - everyone’s story is unique now. Maybe it always was, but it’s easier to see when this is all that’s
left. I still travel from place to place - the shuttle’s useful - but I spend my time listening to everyone and learning their stories. If they consent, I add
them to my repertoire. Then I use that understanding to find wounds and traumas in the community, and try to heal them. I become a mirror in
which the whole community can see themselves, so they can see a way towards healing. It works more often than it doesn’t.
Where were you from? I was born in the Arcadia quadrangle, that chunk supposedly closest to liquid water. When I was a kid, the teachers said
the gullies would run with water again, but Terraform Division never did get that working. One of the lovely things about Mars, once they started
thickening up the atmosphere, was that it was easy to fly. You could just about hold out your arms and take off. We built these little ultralights,
plexiglass wings and CO2 engines, a fire extinguisher hanging under a plastic kite. They flew easy enough a child could do it. Safest thing in the
worlds. At one-third gravity, if you crashed, you bounced. I spent my teen years skimming the gullies carrying circuits a few domes over and
drinking to excess. You know, kid stuff. Got a knack for it. I guess I got addicted. Space piloting is nothing like atmo, but I didn’t know that when I
signed up for Armada and they threw me into navigation. Flying in space is… math.
How did you experience the war? Still, I was good enough that I served six years plotting courses for frigates before getting transferred to the
FSS Endeavour as a reserve helm officer. Where I double-checking trajectories and drank in a supply lockup. Never got the hang of space, but I
got really good at drinking bubbles of gin in zero-g. That’s where I was when it went down. I’m lucky as hell Bashton found me before the singers
did. They were looking for weapons and instead they find me, drunk off my ass in a locker. Next thing I know, I’ve got a pneumatic pistol, noise
cancellers, and I’m glad I paid attention to the MSL classes. We were about two dozen, mostly engees who were working down near the rad
shielding, and we had to push up four hundred meters of ship to the bridge and try not to rupture the hydrogen tanks doing it. Turns out fighting
zero-g doesn’t really… work. It’s mostly ineffectual wrestling that ends when somebody gets their air gun pointed at the other guy. Fuck. They keep
singing, no matter what’s happening to them. I was trying to punch in the coordinates to go home, and over in the corner we’ve got the regular
helm officer velcro’d to the wall with a pneumatic dart through her neck. She’s still mouthing along, right up until the end.
What are you doing now? Flying again. Polvo has some weird air, but it’s almost familiar. Same kind of work, though a lot more turbofan
transports and less homebuilt ultralights. Something always needs to be moved, and air is the safest way. I’m not short work, that’s for sure. I’ve
had the privilege to see a lot of this little planet. From the air, mostly, but you see a lot from up there. When you show up at some little town with
the sprocket they need or the can of fuel that’ll get them through the week… it’s almost enough to make you think we’re going to get through this.
Almost enough to make you hope. I haven’t touched a drop in years.
Sophie Hembrecht-Phann
Where were you from? My parents died when I was pretty young, so I was bounced around from home to home around the stations, y’know?
When you’re raised that way it’s easy to get in with the “wrong” kids. When you gotta be tough to survive, you learn things like stealing, bullying,
and ship jacking. I remember the first ship me and my friends decided we were gonna hijack. I’d always seen the docks, and the ships, and even
been scooted around in a passenger boat or two, but I’ve never seen anything like this luxury jet. Smooth plastic interior, bio-inserts for natural air,
and the top speeds it could reach… weren’t fast enough to avoid the authorities. We all spent time in juvie but after that I knew what I wanted to do.
Fly through the system in my own ship, on my own time, and live in a little piece of freedom away from the stations. It turned into a fulltime job, and I
moved mostly legal goods around between the stations in the belt, and even a few outposts. I was saving up for my own luxury ship some day. It
was all I wanted back then really, to fly fast and free. Silly dreams, looking back.
How did you experience the war? I was in the first wave, out at Feynman Station. I was doing a long distance haul of basic supplies to the
outpost. It was pretty routine and boring. When it happened, I couldn’t exactly understand what was happening at first. I saw what was happening to
everyone else and… thought maybe it was an earthquake? But that didn’t make sense in zero G so then I thought, maybe something hit us? But at
that point it didn’t matter, and I just ran frantically around the station trying to help as many people as I could and drag them back to my ship to get
out of there. When we got to the dock though, my ship had been horribly damaged in an accidental crash. I was trapped there until the rescuers
came. Longest week of my life. After that I just acted as civilian transport trying to rescue people from each specific attack. I’d never been military
trained, but growing up in space had its advantages, and I was specialized at station evac. To be honest, I couldn’t have imagined doing anything
else. It was just… what had to be done. I had to get people out if they couldn’t get out themselves. Guess that’s some heavy personal baggage,
right.
What are you doing now? Basically I move goods in space for people who need them. Loosely it’s trade, but I’m not doing it for the money. I’m
doing it to make sure people on Polvo have what they need. I don’t spend too much time on the ground, and I like to keep moving, so this is the
best thing I could be doing right now. I think a lot of people wanna make a buck off suffering people who need things, but I’ve been there and ... I
just want to help people get what they need, even if that means sneaking past the fleet or moving “illegal” merchandise. We’re what’s left, and we
don’t got time to squabble about economies or fair trade. We have to survive.
Danicka Gonzalez
Belief: Some things you can’t outrun
Belief: Trade is more about people than things
Origin: Belter, Transporter
War Story: Ouverture, Feynman's Sentinels
Profession: Builder, Trader
Where were you from? The dark side of Eynides, of course. With the rest of the Fundar, stashed away in the darkness, a safe distance away
from our Rasgado kin. It’s nonsensical, really, to think those weeping downers are the best ones to tend to our crops and animals. No wonder all
our food tastes so bitter. I mean, I don’t mind all that much. I’m just much happier training. Going on night runs with a full pack and extra ammo,
harvesting redmoth venom to work into our armor, you know. Useful stuff that not everyone can do. It helps me ignore that hole, the knowledge that
I’m not quite, well, not quite whole. I thought I could run away from that feeling. Thought if I got far enough away from Eynides I could ignore
knowing there’s a Rasgado out there I’ll never be able to meet, the only person who could fill that hole inside. That’s why I took my last commission,
and ended up...well.
How did you experience the war? I was stationed on one of the inner planets, one we don’t name anymore. It was supposed to be an easy first
time assignment for a new officer, you know? But then we heard the rumors of the Song … and by the time the Great Choir reached us, everything
had already broken down, even before the first bomb fell. People tried to be strong at first, but between supplies running out and roving gangs, it’s
amazing how fast everything broke down. I saw parents kill their children rather than have them starve. I saw the elderly led outside, staggering
down broken roads and into the countryside to give the rest of us a break from the wild dogs roaming everywhere. We lost track of order, of law, of
rank. The worst part wasn’t the assault, death falling from above randomly. The worst part was the days and weeks after, when people stop
pretending to be better than beasts. Watching grown men shove everyone else aside for the last of the water. Watching little kids picking through
rubble looking for scraps until even their tear ducts were gray from the dust. They couldn’t even cry anymore. The dead were the lucky ones.
What are you doing now? I can’t forget what I saw, but I have—have—to believe that we can be better. Dirt is our new chance. We may all have
that core of brutality, but maybe we can try to make sure that if we are pushed that hard again, we have other options, other ways of responding.
That’s why I’m still with the military. Order is the only thing that saves us from ourselves. We can spread peace through training, calmness through
preparation. Hells, if following protocol can keep me from raging out, imagine what it can do for your average Terran? People need to see that they
don’t have to give into the monster within when things get bad. You can live with that hole inside yourself if you have to. You just have to find the
thing that makes you better.
New Beginnings
Everyone came to Dirt for a new beginning. You came from somewhere else; the decadence of old Terra, the discipline of Mars, the freedom of the
Belt, or an alien world. You survived the war, which marked them forever. You came to Polvo looking for a refuge, a hope, and an opportunity. You
found a community under siege, which needs you. Each player creates a character. Your characters have a total of 6 traits to represent their
history, experience, and skills. Your character will also have 3 subjective Beliefs they struggle to confirm or reject. New, unshakable convictions are
created when you cease questioning your Beliefs. Lastly, your name describes who your character is, and where they come from. Once you are
done creating your characters, you will create your settlement together, and then start your first session.
Traits Overview
Each player character is defined by six Traits. Each describes some aspect of the character’s history, professional experience, and practical
competencies. When you roleplay in a scene, your traits give you context for decisions. When you enter into conflicts, your traits give you bonus
dice if they apply. Each trait comes with a short description, and lists a few different ways that they might give you bonus dice in rolls. You aren’t
limited to the specific examples provided in the trait descriptions, but they are the most common ways those traits might be used on conflicts. If you
think your trait might apply in another way during a conflict, propose it and allow the GM to make the final call. Traits are organized with categories
and options. * Everyone picks one of the four Origin categories (Terran, Martian, Belter, or Alien), then selects one of the 5 specific options
associated with it. * Everyone then picks of the four War Story categories (Ouverture, Crescendo, Dissonance, or Silence), then selects one of the
5 specific options associated with it. * Lastly, everyone picks of the four Profession categories (Builder, Veteran, Leader, or Scholar) then selects
one of the 5 specific options associated with it. Player characters can share Origins, War Stories or Profession categories, but no two characters
can share the same specific option. For instance, a player may choose to create a character with a Martian origin. She is interested in playing a
hardscrabble colonist who knows how to keep an outpost safe. She would choose from the five different options for Martians, and decide that her
character belonged to the Cornerstone Division, the division responsible for terraforming Mars. If there was already someone from Cornerstone
Division, she would have to choose another option.
Terran
You were born and raised on Earth, humanity’s ancestral home. This crowded planet held massive metropolises, quiet rural villages, and vast
swaths of verdant wilderness under open skies. You were a wise and cultured soul, who maintained the traditions of earth. Gain a die in conflicts
dealing with culture, history, or nature. Options: Political Community, Faithful Community, Academic Community, Agricultural Community, Citizen
Community
Martian
You were born on Martian soil, and raised in one of the great domed cities. This planet is a bustling corporate stronghold, surrounded by the
largest terraforming project in human history. You were a bold and passionate soul, who dreamed of build a Mars that your descendants could be
proud of. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with corporations, finances, or hierarchy. Options: Cornerstone Division, Armada Division, Titan Division,
Minerva Division Terraform Division
Belter
You were born in zero-G and raised in the belt. You had to fight for every bottle of oxygen, every drop of water, and every scrap of food. You
never had enough, but at least you had you had each other. You were bold souls who took any risk to keep your people safe and free. Gain a die
in conflicts dealing with with salvage, scarcity, or disputes. \ Options: Stewards (Padres), Marshals (Mariscal), Transporters (Urraca Ships),
Wanderers (Vergers), Resistance (Bradbury Weeps)
Alien
You were born on a distant world as a member of one of the many distinct Alien species who make up Fleet. Your rich culture and advanced
technology set you apart from the primitive humans, who recently joined the civilized galaxy. You were strange yet kind souls, who sought to make
the galaxy a place of peace and interstellar trade. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with with humans, technology, or Fleet. Options: Permancer, Iluvia,
Mercurio, Ursa, Rasgado/Fundar
Origin - Terran
Earth was the cradle and the crown. Earth was where we started and where we could always return. Home to countless distinct peoples and
cultures. It held all of our treasures, and supported nine billion souls. The planet had its faults, but it was what we had. The planet was divided up
between over a hundred nation-states and continental alliances. Each of these nations had distinct governments, with their own legal and political
systems. The religious traditions of humanity: Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, and countless others, began here. Dozens of major languages
and thousands of minor ones echoed in the streets of old Earth. Terra was a planet seemingly made for humanity, with endless supplies of
breathable air and drinkable water that rained from the sky. Massive forests, plains, and scrubland were scattered across the land, while the seas
teemed with life. It was our paradise, lost.
Political Community
You were raised in a political household, in one of Earth’s massive urban centers. You grew up watching the newsnets, reading the pundits, and
learning about geopolitics, which all serve you well. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with politics, governance, or communication.
Faithful Community
You were raised as a member of one of Earth’s ancient religious communities. Whether you worshipped at a mosque, synagogue, gurdwara, or
temple, you had a place to study religious texts and grow your faith. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with morality, faith, or dogma.
Academic Community
You were raised by intellectuals, born to the ivory tower, and educated in the finest schools that Earth had to offer. Whether you attended Cairo
University, Federico Santa María Technical University, or Tsinghua University, your academic credentials are remarkable. Gain a die in conflicts
dealing with research, debate, or education.
Agricultural Community
Civilization depends on food, and the agricultural community of Earth was proud to feed us all. Whether you worked on a massive corporate
orchard, or grew up on an independent family farm, you know how to grow crops and tend livestock. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with animals,
agriculture, or the weather.
Citizen Community
Citizenship is earned through military or civil service to Terra. You are one of those few who worked and bled for Earth, and had earned the
privilege of voting in your civilian life. Citizens had access to the paying jobs that were so rare on old Earth. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with
bureaucracy, emergencies, or violence.
Origin - Martian
We thought Mars was our future. Even in the late 20th century, we looked to our neighboring planet as a second home for the human race. We
dreamed of building domed cities, melting the polar caps, and terraforming the red planet into a green mars. We had such beautiful dreams. The
Corporations were the first to settle on Mars. Dozens of entrepreneurs built their own corporate headquarters on the planet, from Redcap
Engineering Services, to Hephaestus Prospecting Incorporate. Corporate rivalries and industrial espionage eventually led to the first war. Domes
were bombed, air scrubbers sabotaged, and squads of marines in Titan power armour fought in the airless wastelands. When the war finished, the
only corporation which remained was MarsCorp. 200 years later, Mars was unified along lines of commerce rather than nationality. Advanced
manufacturing, military readiness, and terraforming sciences all prospered under the guiding hand of MarsCorp.
Cornerstone Division
You were a member of the Cornerstone Division, who are responsible for the construction and industry of Mars. You learned how to create the
tools that Mars needs to thrive, from atmosphere generating towers for the Sculptors, to the Titan’s power armor. Gain a die in conflicts dealing
with engineering, manufacturing, or teams.
Armada Division
You were a member of Armada Division, commonly known as the Martian Navy. You earned your place on one of the Martian frigates which protect
their planet’s merchant fleet. The Armada watches over us all. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with wrecks, artillery, or sensors.
Titan Division
You were a member of Titan Division, the power-armour clad Martian Army. Your division keeps the peace, enforces corporate law, and protects
Martian interests throughout the system. The Titans can never fall. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with brawls, power-armour, or ordnance.
Minerva Division
You were a member of the Minerva Division, the corporate services and executive branch of MarsCorp. You solved problems and kept the planet
profitable, through legitimate business ventures and more unorthodox enterprises. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with negotiations, planning, or
money.
Terraform Division
You were a member of the Terraform Division, the specialists who work tirelessly to turn Mars into a verdant paradise. Whether you worked at
thickening the atmosphere, importing water, or raising the global temperature, your work will make a better Mars for your children. Gain a die in
conflicts dealing with climate, ecosystems, or algae.
Origin - Belter
The asteroid belt wasn’t meant for humanity. It’s a harsh, lifeless collection of stellar debris beyond the Martian orbit. It was also the best source of
ore and rare minerals outside of a gravity well. Terran governments and Martian prospecting companies were eager to exploit the belt, sending
robotic mining vessels and impoverished human workers. These workers carved living spaces out of the largest rocks and build small stations to
live in. Air, food, water, and medicine were desperately low for generations, but they survived. The Belt is a fractured place without a central
government or corporate authority. Instead, it’s an anarchic constellation of freeholds and outposts led by the brave and the desperate. They live
in the void, eating protein slurry and drinking recycled water in their cramped quarters. Only the periodic visits of the missionary vessels give some
measure of luxury and comfort.
Stewards (Padres)
You were raised on one of the colossal, multi-faith missionary vessels which circulate among the belt. These ships provide the Belt with essential
medical support, educate their brightest, and offer a secluded monastery for those who need to seek the divine. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with
health, safety, or tough love.
Marshals (Mariscal)
You were a Marshal, straddling the difficult roles of being government, judge, authority figure, and designated adult. You settled disputes between
neighbouring outposts, hunted occasional murderers, and kept people as safe as you could. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with crime,
investigation, or pursuit.
Wanderers (Vergers)
You were one of the Wanderers, veterans and survivors who searched the Belt for solace or meaning. You took freelance jobs helping where you
could, and leaving before you got attached. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with trauma, travel, or intimidation.
Origin - Alien
Humanity reached for the stars with the ambitious goal of colonizing the stars for their children. Instead, they found the rest of us, the ‘aliens’ who
were already settled on a hundred worlds throughout the cluster. Despite the warnings of Fleet’s lead anthropologists, our leaders welcomed these
Homo sapiens to join our commonwealth. We gave them their solar system to explore and settle, holding a few fertile planets as inheritance. The
Permancer claimed that it was their duty to welcome all new species into the fold of galactic peace, no matter their war-like natures. The Illuvia
deemed them as “excellent vassal material”. The Mercurio were fascinated by Humanity’s incredible diversity of culture and appearance. The Ursa
called them irredeemably adorable and empathetic creatures. The Rasgado and the Fundar look to the species and their history of peacemaking
between nations once at ruthless war. Each of us saw something promising in humanity.
Ouverture
You were involved in the beginning of the war. Whether you were captured by the Song’s first notes, or you warned the galaxy of the threat, you
were there at the beginning. You should have stopped this from happening, but you had no way of knowing what would come next. Gain a die in
conflicts dealing with science, evasion, or The Song. Options: Feynman’s Sentinels, First Contact, The First Chorus, Shelter in Place, Bashton’s
Children.
Crescendo
You were involved in the darkest period of the war, when our extinction seemed inevitable. The Great Choir smashed against our defenses, and
bombarded the inner planets. You survived; fighting on the Oort Line, or fleeing on one of the thousands of refugee haulers. You will never forget
so many of your friends and family weren’t as lucky as you were. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with violence, refugees, or grief. Options: Personal
Apocalypse, The Oort Line, The Star Lift, Fire Sale, Scorched Earth
Dissonance
You were involved in the bloody resistance against the Chorister Fleet, where humanity fought with every weapon at its disposal to survive.
Whether you participated in Project Static or you were a grateful beneficiary of that weapon, you share responsibility for what you made. You
turned human volunteers into memetic artillery, to be flung against the Chorister Fleet. You still see their faces and hear their screams in your
darkest nightmares. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with sacrifice, anger, or Tormenta. Options: The Stolen Plans, Recruitment Drive, The Chase,
The Battle of Amboso, The Hero
Silence
You were there in the first years after the war. Tormenta’s scream drowned out the Song. The Great Choir fell from orbit to lodge into the rich soil
of Polvo. Some chose to rest and heal, but you knew you had to act. You were one of the millions trying to rebuild a better future out from the
carnage of the past. You settled on Polvo with the hope of making a future for your children. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with healing, hope, or
relationships. Options: The Landing, The First Town, Rendered Aid, The Covenant, Echoes
Feynman’s Sentinels
You were one of the staff on Feynman Station, the first outpost to hear the Song. You personally didn’t hear the Song, but you saw what happened
to your friends and colleagues who did. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with signals, choristers, or brawl.
First Contact
You were one of the staff on Feynman Station. That alien melody seized your mind and bound you to its will, turning you against your friends and
colleagues. You only escaped after Tormenta was unleashed. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with persuasion, coordination, or abduction.
Shelter in Place
You were one of the new recruits of the FSS Endeavour in the middle of a Storm Shelter training exercise when the Chord Strike hit. When the
bridge stopped responding, you followed protocol and ejected safely. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with protocol, fear, or discipline.
Bashton’s Children
You were one of the survivors of the FSS Endeavour who fought Choristers for three days before you were overcome. Commander Bashton
sacrificed herself, so a dozen of you could flee on one of the remaining shuttlecraft. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with close-quarters, traps, or
heroism.
Personal Apocalypse
You were part of the Oghma Initiative, and were one of the hackers and programmers who allowed 9 billion humans on earth to upload record their
final will and messages. You gave them a voice, before it was snuffed out by the Great Choir. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with communications,
relationships, or regret.
Fire Sale
You were part of the elite team of corporate executives, sent by the megacorporations to negotiate with the alien species who welcomed humanity.
You bought empty moons, mothballed space stations, and a harsh frontier world called Polvo. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with l with aliens,
bargains, or pity.
Scorched Earth
When the Great Choir pushed past the Oort Line, they travelled to the inner planets and bombarded them with terrifying efficiency. You were one
of the rare survivors of the assault, who managed to escape the ruined world after a month-long nightmare. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with
weapons, scavenging, or deprivation.
Recruitment Drive
The call went out across the refugee armada for volunteers for an experiment that might stop the song. You were one of the hundreds of
volunteers accepted into the Project Static, and one of a handful that survived with your mind intact. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with passion,
rebellion, or violence.
This Chase
The Great Choir chased the refugee armada for months. You were part of the team that would prepare shuttles loaded with experimental subjects
from Project Static and packed with explosives. Each ship bought the Armada another week of safety. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with traps,
civilians, or bombs.
The Hero
Francis Duffy was an abusive, violent drunk. He was also the perfect host for Tormenta, a memetic carrier who could infect the Great Choir with the
Anti-Song. You knew Francis, and not even he deserved what happened to him in that black-ops laboratory. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with
abusers, heroism, or self-recrimination.
Rendered Aid
You were there, when the Permancer came to negotiate with the humans of Polvo. You helped coordinate supplies, direct refugee traffic, and
establish the official inquiry into the war. Gain a die in conflicts when you deal with resettlement, refugees, or war-stories.
The Covenant
You were part of the team that buried Tormenta in Covenant Yard. You did your best to bury the thing deep enough no one would find it, then
dropped a terraforming bomb on top to be sure. Gain a die in conflicts when you deal with fortifications, Tormenta, or terraforming. .
Echoes
You saw the signs. The slight resonances in the hydrogen of Polvo’s seas. The strange behaviour of the wildlife. You were one of the few who
realized that The Song and Tormenta lurk in the shadows. Gain a die in conflicts when you deal with The Song, Tormenta, or reports.
Builder
You will build this new world brick by brick. It doesn’t matter whether you build shelter, bridges, or trade. No, what matters is that you build a
foundation the next generation can build upon. oil todayso a paradise might grow tomorrow. G to work. Gain a die in conflicts when you deal with
projects, coordination, or physical toil. Options: Wreck Dancer, Engineer, Trader, Agent, Salvager
Veteran
You fought in the war, and at least part of you survived. You are one of the many wounded souls whose martial discipline and military skills offer
security to the people of Polvo. As a Veteran, you know the horrors of war and the importance of keeping the peace. You are the wall protecting
the settlements from threats from beyond or from within. Gain a die in conflicts when you deal with weapons, tactics, or violence. Options: Pilot,
Medic, Grunt, Sentinel, Officer
Leader
Every society has those who follow, and those who lead. You are one of the few who guide and protect the people of Polvo. As a leader, your
power comes from enabling your followers to succeed. Your responsibility is to help them make wise decisions which will unite, rather than divide,
your settlement. Gain a die in conflicts when you deal with commands, plans, or emotions. Options: Community Organizer, Imam, Prospero,
Storyteller, Diplomat
Scholar
You established yourself as one of the great minds of Polvo. You may be a product of the great universities of old earth, the Tharsis Institute of
Technology on Mars, a Permancer Mindtemple, or a Belter research outpost. No matter where you come from, you are a thoughtful intellectual who
deals with the larger issues. Gain a die in conflicts when you deal with research, analysis, or debate. Options: Xenobiologist, Sociologist, Physicist,
Psychologist, Legal Expert
Profession – Builder
We’re building something here. Something strong. Four strong. Eight strong. Whoever wants to be here is welcome, and we welcome everyone
who has hands to work. Yes, we need and welcome everyone’s big ideas. We will welcome everyone who was left behind. And all those who sang
will one day find their own voices. We stand. Four square. Eight square. Twelve square. Because the foundation that we build here will be what the
lives of everyone who follows us is built on. And we owe them a future better than the one we inherited. Tanto V Barkley IV, Ursa Mayor of New
Inverness, Polvo
Wreck Dancer
You are one of the freelance emergency responders of Dirt, who go anywhere to rescue those in need. Hundreds of people each year owe their
lives to the Wreck Dancers, and those debts are always repaid with interest. Gain a die in conflicts when you deal with travel, emergencies, or
debts.
Engineer
Engineers build strong bridges, plan buildings that won’t collapse in the first shake, and know how to make machines that last. If you want to build a
better world, look for an engineer with an iron ring. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with infrastructure, machinery, or schematics.
Trader
You are one of the new merchants of this world, whose trade networks get the settlements the goods and services they needs. You are building a
peaceful world, since when goods don’t cross borders, soldiers do. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with money, bargaining, or trade goods.
Agent
You are a foreign agent, whether you work for Black Sky Industries, or are hired by the Permancer to watch over the humans. Your eyes are
sharp, your contacts everywhere, and your loyalty suspect. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with lies, contacts, or politics.
Salvager
You are one of the countless salvagers who extract priceless goods from the wrecks of Polvo. You may work in the Boneyards, pulling downed
ships apart and sifting through the parts. Others work in in high orbit, cleaning the garbage ring out or just shuttling old hulks into the atmosphere.
Gain a die in conflicts dealing with war-salvage, electronics, or barter.
Profession – Veteran
You know the one; their watch is ended and they’re no longer quite sure what to do with themselves. It’s the look of someone who’s spent years
staring at their boots, at what’s in front of them, and only now realizing there are other places they can look. It makes me cry sometimes, seeing
them make their way in this world. Seeing them relax. But it terrifies me that some of them think freedom from obligation is freedom from duty. You
know I’ve got loyalty to these people in my bones, we all have. They stood when we sang. They fought when we exulted. But that loyalty is tinged
with guilt and fear, when you see what happens when that obligation curdles. When the question becomes not ‘What next?’ but ‘What can I get
away with?’ Adaeze Okezie, Mayor of Doorman’s Rest, Polvo
Pilot
You were a pilot during the war, and your skills are invaluable on this new world. The skies of Polvo are thick in some places with shuttles,
runabouts, and capital ships. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with piloting, driving, or navigation.
Medic
You were a medic during the war and brought those medical skills to Polvo. You saved countless soldiers and civilians during and after battles, and
the work continues on this frontier world. Gain a die in conflicts when you tend to injuries, patients, or memetic infections .
Grunt
The war may have ended, but you will always be a soldier. You trained your body and your mind to fight, be it on the open field or confined
hallways of military ships. You have always fought. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with weapons, brawls, or fitness.
Sentinel
You were a recon specialist during the war, someone who specialized in travelling vast distances to claim territory and hold it. You find the things
that matter, and protect them until the end. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with travel, reconnaissance, or fortification.
Officer
You earned your field commission during the war, and led your troops as best you could. Now you’ve settled on Polvo and lead the effort of
protecting the civilian population from terrible threats. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with subordinates, strategic planning, or civilians.
Profession – Leader
I know you are scared. We all are. The rice blight cut into our harvest, and welcoming these newcomers will make for a lean winter. I know this year
has been hard on all of us especially after those we lost. I need you to look past your fear and grief. These new people are just as scared, scared
that this prosperous community might reject them. They also lost people, and they desperately long a place to call home. We are not inviting in
strangers or beggars into our settlement. We are welcoming our new family into our home. Now let’s find them somewhere to rest because
tomorrow will be a big day for all of us. Soo Jung Kim, Mayor of Bashtons Hold, Polvo
Community Organizer
You didn’t ask to be a leader, but someone needed to keep the peace and guide the community. The settlement recognizes you as its leader,
either in an elected or unofficial role. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with logistics, grudges, or activism.
Imam
You are a religious leader for the settlement, whether you speak for one of the old Terran religious traditions, syncretic belief systems of the Belt,
or bizarre alien faiths. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with birth, death, or transgressions.
Prospero
You are a strange soul whose vision extends farther than most and who shares an intimate understanding of the land. The rumours say you have
strange knowledge and unnatural gifts that cannot be explained by science. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with prophesy, blessings, or curses.
Storyteller
You are a teller of stories who crafts clever fictions. You are the keeper of histories and rememberer of painful truths. You are the collective
memory of the community that holds the settlement together. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with mythology, history, or fiction.
Diplomat
You know how to talk to people. This is remarkably handy, particularly when you have to deal with angry Fundar or desperate Belters. You have
learned the skill to determine what others want and need to hear. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with outsiders, compromises, or formalities.
Profession – Scholar
There is so much we don’t know about Polvo. The Permancer owned this place for centuries, but never so much as built a single outpost here. Ms.
Desroches, our sensor tech, claims that there is some low-level electrical interference to the south east. Dr. Sing, our resident Xenobiologist,
claims there are major ecological niches that are completely empty. When you add that to the strange behaviours of the children, it’s clear we have
cause for concern. That is why I would like to formally request a research team from Black Sky join our settlement for a limited contract to
investigate Polvo. We need to know if this planet is safe for us, or if there’s some kind of danger hiding in the hills. Dr. Hannah Müller, Mayor of
Nova Essen, Polvo
Xenobiologist
You are a scientist who specializes in the study of alien life. You are one of the few who can begin to understand the flora, fauna, and ecosystems
of Polvo. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with xenobiology, ecosystems, or invasive species.
Sociologist
You are an expert in society, culture, and how humans interact. Your skills are needed to keep your fragile settlement working together. Gain a die
in conflicts dealing with institutions, ideology, or cliques.
Physicist
You are a scientist who specializes in the fundamental building blocks of the universe. You may focus is on quantum computing, high-energy
particles, Illuvian resonators, or Newtonian physics. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with energy, experiments, or alien technology.
Psychologist
You are an expert in issues of the mind and mental illness. Your skill are always in high demand in the aftermath of the War. Gain a die in conflicts
dealing with trauma, addiction, or mental illness.
Legal Expert
You are a trained lawyer, experienced in contracts, litigation, and criminal law. Your expertise is sought after, as you establish a new legal system
suitable for Polvo’s challenges. Gain a die in conflicts dealing with courts, treaties, or legislation.
Name Yourself
Now that you know where your character's Talents, Beliefs and Convictions, you must create a name for your character. Your name can be their
legal name, a pseudonym, or some other personal identifier. You should also create a title or monicker for your character that represents their
personality. Some examples of names and titles are... * Estrella Zorita, Engineer of the Rosa * Mia Cadaval, the Killer * Rene Sáenz, The Honest
Broker * Dr. Zhu Li, Professor of Astrophysics. * Kaptan Atalay, The Gardener * Adsiz Gurbuz, Pilot Extraordinaire * Sevin Kocer, Union Organizer *
Professor Dayaxo, Xenobiology Specialist * Lt. Buuxa, the Groundpounder * Dallays, the Unstoppable Reporter
Building a Home
After the War is a game about communities of strangers coming together. With character creation complete, now you can work together to create
the new home you will share with the other characters. This chapter guides you towards collaborative creation based on key industries and
locations as well as the many dependents who rely on the characters and other elements of communal living. You establish the various
relationships and personal histories binding everyone to each other and to this place you call home. After you know a bit about your home, the first
session of play is your exploration of it. This is where you introduce your characters to each other, and discover how they live their lives. The entire
process for creating characters and a settlement should take less than an hour, with the rest of the time spent on these introductions. There are
five steps in the process. 1. Select your Settlement 2. Make a Map 3. Describe your People 4. Welcome the Characters 5. Day in the Life
(Optional)
Polvan Settlements
There are six core settlements on Polvo, where you are most likely to call home.
Barleymow: A tight-knit farming community where rumour and small-town drama run rampant.
Warframe Yard: A boneyard where salvagers pull scrap from fallen warships.
Fort Blight: A military outpost which stands on guard for potential threats.
The Vermillion Exchange: A trading post full of exotic trade goods and strange visitors
Daedelus Station: A scientific facility where dangerous research is conducted.
Port Thoth: A spaceport that connects Polvo to the offworld colonies and Fleet.
Beyond Dirt
While most of the survivors of the war, there are a number of other sanctuary worlds where brave souls rebuild. Check out the Offworld
Settlements in chapter XX if you want to tell these stories. These Offworld Settlements include:
The Oort Line: A Belter community of survivors amid the defenses which held the Great Choir at bay.
Long Fall: A colony world under a colossal plateau, where the survivors try to rebuild the capital of the Galactic Union.
Sargasso: A planet torn in two, where Black Sky Industries tests their dangerous technologies.
Each settlement offers a list of things for your group to define together.
Industries: Select three of the five options presented for your list. Each Industry is also represented by an NPC.
Neighbours: Define which neighbouring settlement is on good terms with your settlement, and which has given you trouble.
An enterprising GM or collaborative group can make their own custom settlements using the standard ones as models.
Mateo Martinez is the Belter mechanic at his machine shop. His Belief is that “Nothing is broken forever”.
Diwata Mendoza is a Terran who work at the mill, managing the dying process. Her Belief is that “Children are a curse”
Roberta Santos is a Martian who owns the steakhouse and knows everyone in town. Her Belief is that “The Song was a Blessing”.
Once you have these side characters in place, each character establishes a close relationship with one of them. Perhaps they were childhood
friends, who fled the ruins of Earth together. Perhaps they served together. They might even have a familial or romantic relationship. Tell the
group why you care about this person and need to protect them. The GM has more information on these relationships on page. XX. You may
create more side characters at any time during play. Perhaps a stranger comes to the settlement, fresh from the Belt and looking for sanctuary.
Maybe you got into conversation with the woman who runs the medical clinic in a broken-down wreck, and you got to hear her story. The game
master is responsible for managing all of the side characters, and creating them when more are needed.
Make a Map
Each settlement has certain places which matter. The old bar where everyone knows your name. The remains of a warship reworked into a
makeshift hospital. The longhouses that hold the agricultural workers and their families. Each of these locations gives context to your stories,
helping define the people who live there. As a group, look at the three industries you have chosen for your settlement, and create a location
associated with each one of them. These locations need a name and a one-line description.
For instance, let’s say that you have an Agricultural Community with Farming, Textiles, and Ranching. The locations might be as follows.
(Farming) Mechanico Mateo: Mateo’s machine shop is set-up in an old re-purposed barn, where he repairs tractors and combines. (Textiles)
The Redwater Mill: The settlement is renowned for the beautiful crimson-coloured wool produced in this massive woolmill. (Ranching)
Roberta’s Ribs: A steakhouse with amazing cedar-smoked ribs and excellent ales, where the community comes to relax.
Each settlement in the book comes with a handy illustrated map which you can use for your game if you like. These maps are available on our
website at http://www.genesisoflegend.com/downloads/ If you have a bit of time and at least one artist at the table, consider grabbing a blank
worksheet and drawing your own settlement map together. Make certain to include at least: * One location for each industry * One location where
most people live * One location where the settlement comes together * One location that most people avoid
Industries
Pick 3 Industries for your settlement and the NPCs associated with them.
Farming: Piotr Młynarski, a Terran Agriculturalist who believes that Everything has a Season.
Fishing: Adaeze the Fisher, a Martian Terraformer who believes that Water is Life.
Ranching: Penitence the Shepherd, a Permancer who believes that Everyone is Worthy of Care.
Textiles: Serafina the Weaver, a Belter Resistor who believes that Martian Uniforms are Blood Red.
Logging: Naseem the Stout, a Martian Cornerstone who believes that Home is a Right.
Questions
Your settlement is the only one on Polvo that can produce a specific kind of good. What do your produce, and why is it prized?
Everyone knows about the scandal which rocked the community last winter. Whose poor judgement broke a family?
The youth don't realize how precious a boring life can be. What risky activity do they perform outside of the community?
Neighbours
There are five nearby settlements who you trade with.
One of the neighbouring settlements is on bad terms with your community. How have their actions or inaction insulted, frightened, or harmed your
community?
Industries
Pick 3 Industries for your settlement and the NPCs associated with them.
Salvage: Farah the Tinkerer, a Belter Marshal who believes that Nothing is Sacred
Arms: Oruna the Goliath, a Martian Titan who believes that The Dead Must be Honoured.
Metalwork: Issan Bagri, a Terran Faithful who believes that Family Keeps us Human.
Datamining: Cena the Runner, a Belter Resistor who believes that Information Wants to be Free.
Questions
Your settlement is partially built from salvaged warships which plunged from orbit. Which group or business fortified and moved into hull of the FSS
Defiant?
The world is sharp and cold, but your community has worked hard to make things better. How does the community come together in warm
camaraderie?
The Boneyard is a dangerous place. What is the collective name for the orphans who run through the ruins, after having lost their parents in
salvage accidents?
Neighbours
There are five nearby settlements who you trade with. - Barleymow, a Farming Community - Fort Bligh, a Military Outpost - The Vermillion
Exchange, a Trading Post - Daedalus Station, a Research Station - Port Thoth, a Spaceport
One of the neighbouring settlements is on good terms with your community. How did they help your community overcome a recent hardship?
One of the neighbouring settlements is on bad terms with your community. How have their actions or inaction insulted, frightened, or harmed your
community?
Industries
Pick 3 Industries for your settlement and the NPCs associated with them.
Mercenary: Vasna the Blade, a Fundar who believes that Violence is the Universal Coin.
Banking: Nakisha the Bookeeper, a Belter Steward who believes that Peace is Priceless.
Containment: Sergeant Vigilance, a Permancer who believes that Humans Can’t be Trusted.
Medical: Dr. Jai Li, a Terran Citizen who believes that Capitalism is Poison.
Construction: Private Sakine, a Martian Cornerstone who believes that Walls Keep Us Safe.
Questions
Your settlement was originally designed to fend off some specific threat. Was your outpost created to protect against hostile lifeforms, bandits,
Tormenta or the Song?
Your outpost has a secret holding facility buried underneath it. What terrifying threat does your outpost contain, control, and study?
The outpost was originally designed as a military installation, but is home to an increasing civilian population. What new tradition or practice has
taken root in the civilian population, despite the dangers it poses to the outpost’s military readiness?
Neighbours
There are five nearby settlements who you trade with.
One of the neighbouring settlements is on good terms with your community. How did they help your community overcome a recent hardship?
One of the neighbouring settlements is on bad terms with your community. How have their actions or inaction insulted, frightened, or harmed your
community?
Industries
Pick 3 Industries for your settlement and the NPCs associated with them.
Basic Staples: The Ebony Mask, a Mercurio who believes that Everyone has a Price
Terran Luxuries: Rabbi Esther Rubenstein, a Terran Faithful who believes that Memories are Blessings
Alien Goods: Rostal the Fair, a Fundar who believes that Fair Bargains Keep the Peace
Art: Maribel the Vandal, a Belter Ranger who believes We should Afflict the Comfortable.
Contraband: Idowu the Shadow, a Martian from Minerva Division who believes that Nothing is Offlimits
Questions
Your trading post was originally founded by one of the alien communities. Was it originally founded by the Permancer, Ursa, Rasgado/Fundar,
Illuvia, or Mercurio?
Your trading post is home to worshippers of an unusual religion. What are the basic tenets of their faith?
What are the three rules that outsiders must follow if they want to enter the trading post, and which of these is most often broken?
Neighbours
There are five nearby settlements who you trade with. - Barleymow, a Farming Community - Warframe Yard, a Boneyard - Fort Bligh, a Military
Outpost - Daedalus Station, a Research Station - Port Thoth, a Spaceport
One of the neighbouring settlements is on good terms with your community. How did they help your community overcome a recent hardship?
One of the neighbouring settlements is on bad terms with your community. How have their actions or inaction insulted, frightened, or harmed your
community?
Daedalus Station: The Research Station
War inevitably inspires scientific research and development. On Polvo, countless corporate research ventures, fleet installations, and government
black-ops sites were built to support R&D work. This settlement is one of these centers of knowledge, exploration, and experimentation. By
studying the lessons of the last war, the settlement aims to prevent the next one.
Industries
Pick 3 Industries for your settlement and the NPCs associated with them.
Xenobiology: Professor Rilniasta, an Ursan who believes that Ecosystems are Clever Puzzles
Psychology: Dr. Sanchez, a Belter Steward who believes that Trauma is a Teacher
Terraforming: Imiana the Botanist, a Martian Terraformer who believes that Every Problem has a Solution.
Education: Professor Meiyin Zang, a Terran Academic who believes that _Education is a Gateway.
Questions
Your settlement was originally created by a government or corporation. Who were they, and what did they want you to study?
The station’s research is incredible. What new product, technology, or lifeform has your work produced for Polvo, and why is it too good to be
true?
Due to the dangerous nature of the research, the settlement has strict rules about outsiders. What does someone have to do if they wish to visit
this settlement?
Neighbours
There are five nearby settlements who you trade with.
One of the neighbouring settlements is on good terms with your community. How did they help your community overcome a recent hardship?
One of the neighbouring settlements is on bad terms with your community. How have their actions or inaction insulted, frightened, or harmed your
community?
Industries
Pick 3 Industries for your settlement and the NPCs associated with them.
Air Transport: Captain Martinez, a Belter Transporter who believes that Safety is an Illusion.
Cargo: Nyanjera Mwangi, a Martian from Armada Division who believes that Children are Immortality.
Unskilled Labour: Acostara the Orphan, an Ursan who believes that Hunger Keeps us Sharp.
Government: Kuhukura Tukaki, a Terran Politico who believes that Boredom is a Luxury.
Questions
Your Spaceport suffered an attack during the war. How has this history changed the port, or surrounding landscape?
Weary travellers are a thirsty bunch. Describe the famous bar at the heart of your settlement and the alien bartender who runs the place.
Your outpost is home to a major criminal enterprise. What illicit activity does that organization specialize in?
Neighbours
There are five nearby settlements who you trade with.
One of the neighbouring settlements is on good terms with your community. How did they help your community overcome a recent hardship?
One of the neighbouring settlements is on bad terms with your community. How have their actions or inaction insulted, frightened, or harmed your
community?
Alternative Settlements There are plenty of other settlements which are spread across Polvo’s verdant surface.
Military Fort
Skyguard A repurposed illuvian dreadnaught star-cannon which has be repurposed for planetary defenses.
The Oubliette A Heavy containment settlement for the worst offenders and those infected beyond salvation.
The Star Fort A massive set of fortifications used as a last-ditch refuge in case of planetary disaster, with a massive bunker.
Agricultural Settlement
Slaughterton The meat processing and abattoir settlement full of tanneries and the stench of butchery.
Orchard Vale Vast plantations of fruit trees and berry bushes with a major alcohol problem.
Neptune's Trident A fishing and seaweed harvesting settlement on a peninsula on the western sea.
Boneyard Settlement
The Circuit Depot, where any piece of salvaged tech components can be found.
Hephaestus's Forge, the Martian-run planetary smelter which recycles composite alloys into fresh materials for civilian use.
The Dustkeeper Archive, where personal mementos, art, and memories salvaged from wrecks are kept safely for their owner's eventual
return.
Tranquil, a massive trading hub for art which is renowned for sculpture and painting.
Exod'halais, a settlement founded by a Mercurio merchant specialized in alien goods, foods, relics, and technology.
Dutchman is a mobile trading hub built into a stralite, slowly moving across Polvo with trade goods a plenty.
Port Settlement
Port Rimward is a major spaceport built into the rim of a impact crater left by orbital bombardment during the War of the Song.
Skyhook Station is a space elevator that connects the top of the XXXX mountain with an orbital satellite in a shallow orbit, allowing for easy
cargo lift capability.
Port Magpie is the centre of the planetary mail and parcel service, which uses surface aircraft to deliver letters and cargo throughout Polvo.
Aurora Terraforming Complex is a repurposed interstellar colony ship that was originally designed to contain a series of isolated biospheres,
and is now used for MarsCorp terraforming research.
Xenolab Research Station is a secret Black Sky Industries facility that specializes in genetic engineering, and is rumoured to be developing
Terran-Polvan hybrids.
The Legion's Hall serves double duty as a mental treatment facility and as a memetic research station, under the watch of the Peacekeepers.
Other Settlements
Tortuga, a floating settlement build on dozens of Polvan Flotillas and occupied by the Free Companies. Within this settlement, personal
reputation holds more importance than written laws.
Lowbrook, a small town south of Covenant Yards that was originally founded to produce the food necessary for the troops stationed there.
Unfortunately, they have been corrupted by Tormenta's influence over the last decade.
Fort Permanence, the administrative headquarters of Fleet and the remnants of the Galactic Union on Polvo. This emerald city is the heart of
Permancer culture and rarely welcomes outsiders in their walls.
Atlas Seven is a major MarsCorp facility dedicated to production of "construction suits" which look remarkably like Titan Power Armour. It also
happens to be the local planetary headquarters for MarsCorp under the auspices of Minerva Division.
The Hive began as a handful of refugees huddled around the base of Mount XX in the days following the end of the war. Now it's an
uncontrolled and sprawling tent city of the poor and the desperate which has spread over nearly ten square kilometers.
The Riven Sanctum is an isolated monastery of the catholic tradition, founded shortly by a Dominican friar after the War. Over the years that
followed, hundreds of Fundar converted to the Terran faith and secluded themselves within the monastic order.
Four Horizons is a massive square settlement that is home to thousands of Ursan Quads and the centre of Ursan culture on Polvo. Every four
years, a single member of each Quad on Polvo will make a week-long religious pilgrimage to the Four Horizons, though the details are not
shared with outsiders.
Dhool Ka Ooncha Mandir (धूल का ऊँचा मं दर) began as a small hindu temple, which has been growing year after year as newcomers continue to
build the complex. It’ one of the larger religious settlements on Povlo and is surrounded by a thriving trading post.
Shackleton City is a massive polar station known as the Shining City, due to both the brilliant sea ice and the the large Illuvian population.
Welcome Dirtside
Knowing what the settlement is like, it’s time to show how the main characters began their lives there. Everyone arrived the settlement at different
times, and the group should determine in which order they joined. - The character who has been at the settlement the longest describes how they
arrived. - Did they bring anyone or anything with them? - Where on the map did they decide to live, and where do they work? - What were their first
impressions of the community?
In descending order of seniority, each character welcomes the next to the settlement. Roleplay how those the characters met, and give each new
arrival a chance to answer those three questions. Throughout the process, the GM may ask additional questions to learn more about your
characters, and the community on a whole. The game will begin with the arrival of the newest character.
What information do you need to get from the other person, and why are they reluctant to share?
What debt do you want to repay to other person, and how did you owe it?
Why have you come to apologize to other person?
Why has the other person’s behaviour made you unhappy or uncomfortable?
What gift have you come to offer the other person, and why is it significant?
What project are you working on with the other person, and what has complicated it?
What do have you come to confess to the other person?
Continue to play through these scenes until you reach the natural conclusion of this first session amd you have gotten a good sense of the
character relationships. The GM will use this information to prepare for the next session, when the action begins.
Meaningful Choices
Before you can learn about the narrative structure or the dice mechanics, we need to take a moment to discuss how you can create compelling
choices. A meaningful is one that is complex, compelling, and consequential. Let's get into what these mean.
A complex choice means there is no easy answer. Every option available to you offers a different set of benefits and drawbacks for you to
consider. By examining the consequences of the choice, you can discover what your character really cares about. In order for this to be really
effective, you need to have at least partial understanding of the potential impacts of your decisions. Some complex choices offer dozens of
different paths, while others ask if you are willing to walk along the single path before you.
A compelling choice means the outcomes matter to you, both as a character in the fiction and as a player at the table. As a character, the
consequences should relate to their beliefs, their history, their identity, and their relationships. As a player, the decision should draw you into your
character's shoes, evoke your emotions, and lead you to think about the character's inner life. You should only make choices if you care about the
outcome!
A consequential choice will have a lasting impact on the story. Polvo is a big world full of desperate and idealistic souls. Every settlement has their
own needs, their own ambitions, and their own internal divisions. Every corporation is looking to gain something, either building something for
themselves or tearing down their rivals. Tormenta hungers and dominates, while The Song seeks to harmonize us all. You can make choices that
will change the world and the people in it, for good or for ill.
Meaningful choices are the core around which the rest of the rules revolve. You establish and play through dramatic Scenes that focus on these
choices. You have short Moments between scenes, where you reflect on your decisions and discover how they affect your character. Through
these meaningful choices, you confront your Beliefs. You change the world through your actions, and build a better future for your communities
despite the horrors of your past. Are you ready?
Narrative Structure
To tell a story full of meaningful choices, we need a framework for play. In this game, we move between two different modes of play: Scenes and
Moments. Most of the time will be devoted to exciting and dynamic Scenes, but there will always be minutes of each session devoted to the
contemplative, quiet Moments. Each mode offers different rules, procedures, and narrative constraints, leading to rich stories.
Scenes are dramatic events where characters focus on making meaningful choices. Three people will work together to establish each scene,
declaring the initial situation, the inciting incident, and the underlying question needing an answer. You roleplay and describe what happens in the
fiction, until two people disagree on what should happen next. The conflict resolution system tells you who gets their way, and describes some of
the fallout from those conflicts. Continue roleplaying and entering into conflicts until you have answered the questions of the scene.
Moments are interludes when one or two characters will are emotionally vulnerable and explore the consequences of their choices. There are four
different kinds of moments: discovery, growth, corruption, and grief.
A moment of discovery is where someone asks a probing question to explore a character's thoughts or memories. A moment of growth is where
someone resolves, embracing it or rejecting it for mechanical benefits. A moment of corruption occurs when the inhuman forces of Tormenta or the
Song warp a character's Beliefs. A moment of grief represents what happens when a character is retired from play. Each of these moments will
change a character's personality in subtle ways.
When you play through Scenes, you may gain points of Strain and Insight. Strain represents the accumulated stress, exhaustion, and harm that
you may suffer during conflicts. Insight represents the accumulated wisdom, experience, and narrative influence that you may gain by confirming or
refuting your Beliefs. When you acquire enough Insight, you trigger moments of discovery that removes points of Strain.
Establishing Scenes
Before you can play in a scene, you need to establish it. In some games, this is left to the Game Master, but the Song taught us the power of
collaboration. Three people will decide on different components of each scene. The three elements of each scene are the Platform, the Tilt, and
the Question, which need to be created in that order.
The GM creates the Platform, then chooses one of the players to pick the Tilt. After creating the Tilt, that player will choose another player to
create the Question. Lastly, each player decides if their character should play in the scene, or if they should act as an audience instead.
After establishing the Question, you play the scene. Feel free to readjust the order of this once the group is experienced with collaborative scene
framing. The key element is that all three elements need to be established by three different people. The GM may be best suited to create the Tilt
or the Question as the game progresses.
The Platform
The Platform is the initial situation, describing where and when the scene occurs. It's a static description of how the location looks, sounds, smells,
feels, and tastes. Think of the Platform as a photo or a holovid of the scene, including a handy timestamp to tell you how much time has passed
since we last met. You can describe locations within or beyond your settlement, as well as any people you might think would fit in. Be obvious and
give a foundation for the next person to build from.
EG. This scene takes place the following night, in the shattered ruins of a fallen fleet cruiser which plunged into the surface of Tormenta.
Countless scavengers have clawed their way into the vulnerable underbelly of the beast, ripping out computer cores and empting the on-
board armory. The place reeks ozone from countless small electrical fires throughout the hulk..
The Tilt
The Tilt is the inciting incident that drives the action. The person creating the Tilt is responsible for creating problems, threats, and mysteries which
the characters need to deal with. Look to the Platform for inspiration, and consider who is unhappy with the status quo. Are there people within the
settlement who might be involved? Are there corporate agents meddling in your business? Is the Song or Tormenta involved? Use the Tilt to focus
the scene on particular characters and confront their Beliefs. Create more mysteries than solutions.
EG. A young woman climbs through a melted bulkhead with a heavy satchel slung across her back. She seems like an experienced
scavenger, though only the most brave or desperate will work alone on a job in a military hulk like this. As she walks out of the wreckage, you
notice some dark liquid staining her left arm, and you hear her humming faintly.
The Question
The Question is the compelling element you want to explore in the story. It is the focus of the scene, directing everyone's attention toward certain
issues, Beliefs, or people. After answering the Question, you can close the scene and move onto the next. Most Questions are obvious and
straightforward, directly addressing the mysteries or problems provided in the Tilt. Sometimes you will want to create a more nuanced and indirect
Question that addresses personal issues, identities, or relationships.
EG. There are two strong Questions for the scene. The obvious question would be "What has the scavenger taken from the wreck?", which
would lead to a scene of interrogation or investigation. The indirect Question would be "Can we earn the scavenger's trust?", which leads to
more social scenes that might interact with someone's Beliefs.
The Cast
After establishing the scene, each player decides how they wish to participate in the scene. They may choose to have their character involved in
the scene, or they may choose to act as an audience instead.
If your character is involved in a scene, follow all of the procedures under “Actor Mode”. This means that you collaborate with each other to create
a story, describing your character’s actions and speaking in their voice. You can make decisions, and participate directly in conflicts. You can
suffer Strain, and gain Insight in the process.
If your character is not involved in a scene, follow all the procedures under “Audience Mode”. This means that you observe the scene from outside
the action. You can portray side characters with similar origins, war stories, or professions to your own. You can judge whether a player’s Trait is
applicable in a conflict, and decide when players have confronted their Beliefs. You can grant Insight to the players in the scene, when they
confirm or refute their Beliefs.
Now that you have established the scene, play can start. Most of the time, you will roleplay your characters, speaking with their voices and
describing their actions. When people disagree on what happens next, you trigger the conflict resolution mechanic to figure out who gets their way.
When you have answered the scene's Question, you can close the scene.
Collaborate
In this mode, you portray your lead character as they live their lives. You can speak to other characters, asking questions or guiding
conversations. You declare what your character is doing physically and mentally. You tell us whenever you stride forward to confront the stranger
entering the settlement, or when you watch them warily from the shadows. Normally everything declared or described during collaboration is
assumed to occur in the fiction.
You are not limited to describing a character’s actions. You can describe elements of the setting, telling us about that crate in the corner of the
room, or the darkening clouds on the horizon. If you came from earth, you might tell us about the small flower garden that the other terrans are
tending. If you fled from the Belt, you might talk about the coded graffiti sprayed on the market wall. You may tell us the small details about the
world that make it feel real, using your origins, war stories, and professions to guide you.
The most important thing that you do in these scenes is to interact with other characters. You have an opportunity to challenge the Beliefs of the
other lead characters by pointing out the error of their ways. You can defend your own hard-fought Beliefs from the challenges of others.
Sometimes other leads will disagree with your words or actions, and this will drive the story forward. When two people disagree on what will happen
next in the fiction, you have three options.
When you are trying to figure out what to do during this phase of play, here are some guidelines. **Stand up for your Beliefs **in play,
supporting them whenever you can in the face of adversity. Challenge the Beliefs of other characters, either with evidence or rhetoric.
Take risks that boldly push the story forward. Defend your Settlement and the people who live there, both from immediate threats and
long-term problems. **Reincorporate **facts, ideas, people, and symbols which were previously introduced.
Conflict
When a conflict is triggered, you use dice to help determine who gets their way. In order to determine the outcome, you; 1. Set goals; 2. Collect
your dice; 3. Roll the dice, making any rerolls you might need; then 4. Resolve the outcome.
Set Goals
Both people in the conflict declare what they want to happen. After explaining what each side wants, the two people involved have a chance to
either back down or negotiate a compromise. Otherwise, you know what the stakes of the conflict will be. Player goals must relate to their
character’s actions. They can’t establish conflicts which are completely outside of their character’s control or influence, such as changing the
weather or resurrecting someone. Most GM goals revolve support either the Song or Tormenta. There are only rare circumstances where the GM
will trigger a goal outside of that context, and will be rolling fewer dice in these situations. The GM can still establish that there is a storm, or that a
character dies of their wounds without triggering a formal conflict.
EG. Karya and Lucio are in conflict over what needs to happen with this strange artifact which the scavenger had extracted from the broken
hulk. Karya saw how terrible some of these bioengineered devices could be during the war, so her goal is to hide or bury the artifact so that it
can't cause any harm.
Lucio feels that the thing could be incredibly valuable for the settlement, especially since it seems to generate electricity from nothing. Neither
Karya nor Lucio are willing to back down.
Collect Dice
During conflicts as a player, you always roll at least one die. You add one additional die for each relevant Trait that can help you achieve your
goal. As characters have 6 Traits, they can gain a maximum of +6 dice from this. Each Trait lists the kinds of actions that it normally helps with.
Players can propose creative uses of Talents, but it’s up to the Audience to determine if it’s appropriate. (pg. XX) You also add an additional die for
each Conviction you support or confirm with your actions. Note that refuting your Convictions, or addressing your Beliefs will not affect your dice
pools. This can give you a maximum of 4 additional dice to your roll. If the GM is in a conflict, they will choose either to portray the seductive
influence of The Song, or the violent passions of Tormenta. The strength of the opposition varies depends on how they are confronting the
players. The Vector represents how much memetic influence is behind the conflict, while the **Threat **the number of people who are in peril. You
will always roll 1-5 Vector dice and 1-5 Threat dice, which means that you have a range of 2-10 dice for any roll. The GM can learn more about
these different levels of opposition in the GM Chapter on page. XX.
EG. Karya is a player character involved in a conflict, so she begins with one die. Because she was of Terran Origin from the Religious
Community, she gets two more dice from her origin. Her War Story was when she fought on the Oort Line during the **Crescendo **period
of the war, for another two dice. None of her professions help, and she didn't have any relevant Convictions. She collects a total of five dice.
Lucio is **Belter **who saw the starvation during the Silence. He has been a professional Salvager with a firm Conviction that
"Technology will Save Us" . He also collects a total of five dice.
EG. Karya rolls 1, 1, 4, 5, 6. Since she has one Strain, she discards both of her ones, which leaves her with a total of 15.
Lucio rolls 1, 1, 2, 4, 5. He doesn’t have any Strain, so he adds up all of his dice and it leaves him with a total of 13.
Lucio is losing the conflict, and he wants to reroll for a chance to beat Karya. He adds one point of Strain, then rerolls his three lowest dice
dice, getting 1, 3, 4, 5, 6. Since he now has a point of Strain, he discards his one and adds up the remaining dice for a total of 18.
Karya could reroll at this point, but she chooses not to push her luck.
EG. Lucio explains how the settlement's only generator is dying, and they need the artifact to keep the light on. He understands the risks
associated with alien technology, of course, but the odds of some kinds of mishap are so much lower than the potential benefits the artifact
can offer. Karya grudgingly accepts that he can take the device. Lucio then suffers another point of Strain and they return to the scene.
Support
In this mode, you can portray side characters when needed. Take on the role of the drunken settlement guards, boisterous children, or the angry
mothers trying to keep the peace. When one of the lead characters needs someone to argue with, give them someone to get in their way. When a
tense conversation between players needs an interruption, introduce a side character. Portray the settlement by playing the many people of Polvo.
You are not limited to side characters. You can describe elements of the setting such as the scorching summer sun, or the crumbling concrete
shelters that the characters stand beside. You have full authority in this mode, to describe things concerning your lead character’s Origin, War
Story, or Profession. If your lead character is a Xenobiologist, you can describe some strange animal climbing on the walls. If your lead character
deal with the first notes, feel free to describe the eerily similar tune being hummed by the children in the corner. You can even provide facts or
details about past events, when it is related to something in the scene.
Elaborate
Each Trait lists a series of situations where it would apply, but also has room to grow. During play, players have the opportunity to expand these
traits by establishing new situations where it would apply. Perhaps one of the players acting in a scene wants to declare that the Belter
Transporters are renowned smugglers. As the Audience, you judge if the situation makes sense for the relevant Trait. You can ask the player to
explain how the trait applies in situations based in their character’s personal experience. If you agree with their reasoning you can give them
permission to add that situation to that trait. Each trait can be expanded once. Allowing players to do world-building during play by elaborating on
their existing traits is a crucial part of play. This is how you define the importance of childcare in Permancer society, describe the food rationing of
the Exodus Fleet during the Crescendo, or explain that Psychologists are bound by strict ethical frameworks.
Eg. Lucio wants to use "Belter" in a bar fight, and it doesn’t seem to clearly apply. One of the Audience members asks how Tora used this in
the past. Tora’s player describes the food riots of their youth, when rationing led to violence in the corridors of her home station. The
Audience agrees, and Tora gets to use that die in that conflict. Any other Belters also add this new use to their own sheets.
Judge
After the War is a game about confronting your Beliefs in play, by creating situations that support or contradict them. The lead characters will be
making bold declarations and provocative statements, in response to the dramatic situations they find themselves in. You are responsible for
determining when they have confronted their Beliefs, and award insight. Beliefs are confronted when their are either confirmed, or refuted during
play. Whether the events of the scene support the lead character’s Belief or contradicts it, it provides Insight. If they vocally argue with someone
else in support of their principles or take risks accordingly, consider this to be a confirmation. If they chose not to defend their perspective or
concede that they may be in error, consider this a refutation. At the end of each Scene, the audience members examine the Beliefs of the actors in
the scene. If most of the audience agrees that a Character’s Belief has been been confronted, tell them to mark a point of Insight on their sheet.
Sharing Moments
Scenes are large, dynamic events that impact everyone, with high stakes and dramatic conflicts. Moments are periods of introspection, discussion,
and radical vulnerability. There are four different kinds of moments, each with different triggers and impacts.
Discovery
Discoveries are a chance to learn more about the characters and connect on a personal level. If you have reached a discovery milestone on your
Insight track, you can ask a question about another player's character's thoughts, history, or relationships. They are obliged to answer your
question, either by roleplaying a discussion or narrating events. Consider using flashbacks, inner monologues, montages, and other narrative
techniques to answer the question in an interesting way. Discovery deepens bonds and adds nuance to the story. Consequently, each moment
removes a point Strain from each person involved. This is the only way to remove Strain during a session, and it’s a key element of play.
EG. At the end of the scene, Lucio reached a discovery milestone on his Insight track and triggered a moment of discovery. He asked why
Karya is so hostile to using technology to help the community. Karya’s player could have roleplayed through a conversation with Lucio to talk
about the issue, but she decides that a flashback would be better. She describes herself as a teen girl, on a heavily damaged cargo ship
under attack by the Harvest Fleet. She describes how a team of repurposed asteroid mining drones cut into the hull of the ship, and brutally
murdered a dozen refugees in front of her. She described how her father tried to fight one off with a cargo container, and got bisected by a
drilling laser. How her older sister tried to help the injured, and was crushed by one of the drones. She describes how young Karya fled from
her dying family in raw terror. After giving that horrific answer to the simple question, both Karya and Lucio remove one Strain from their
character sheets.
Growth
Growth is when a character decides to unconditionally accept or reject one of their Beliefs. This is triggered when you reach the growth milestone
on your Insight track. Each moment of growth is played out as a deeply personal and meaningful conversation between characters. It's an
opportunity to explore your character’s decision and express how their perspectives have evolved. The other person will help you resolve your
belief, although they are under no obligation to agree with your decision. After you play through this scene, your Belief will be transformed into a
Conviction. If you accepted your Belief as an absolute truth, copy the text of your former Belief onto the Conviction section of your character sheet.
If you rejected your Belief, write a new Conviction that describes your new view of the world. When you have finished writing your Conviction, erase
the old Belief from your sheet. Create a new, replacement Belief to represent a new issue that you want to explore in play. The replacement Belief
needs to still be a subjective, controversial declaration. Finally, reset your Insight Track by erasing all of the points marked on it, so you can begin
your journey of self-discovery once more.
EG. Kayra had held the Belief that "Polvo is our only home". She decides that events during the session confirmed that Belief, and that she is
no longer struggling with the issues associated with it. She writes that down as a new conviction, and replaces it with a new Belief that
"Technology is a drug". Lucio held the Belief that "Violence is abhorrent". After a Martian marine saved his settlement through heavy
firepower, Lucio rejected his former belief outright. He wrote a new Conviction of "Violence is a Necessity", which represents his new,
unshakable perspective.
Corruption
The biggest threat on Polvo isn’t failure. It’s the seductive promise of The Song, which twists your minds and steals your will to serve its ends. It’s
the raging, violent passions Tormenta thrusts into your hearts. It’s both of these memetic viruses that can infect anyone who lets down their guard.
Whenever the Game Master wins a Conflict, they can choose to cede their victory in order to trigger Corruption. During Corruption, the player who
lost the conflict achieves their goal, narrates the outcome, and pays the price of victory as if they had won normally They then pass over their
character sheet to the GM, who will get to alter one of that character’s Beliefs. How the Belief is altered depends on which memetic force the GM is
using in the conflict. If the GM had been representing The Song in the conflict, they will alter one Belief to align with the ideals of conformity,
servitude, and evangelism. If the GM had been representing Tormenta, they will alter the beliefs to align with the ideas of rebellion, dominance,
and violence. While the GM can replace the Belief completely, the best GM’s will twist the meaning subtly by changing one or two words. The
character is not consciously aware their Belief was corrupted, and rationalize any change in perspective. Corruptions are horrific and brutal
violations of the character identities. They are the horrific elements that destabilize Polvo, and erode the foundation of your settlement. That’s why
consent is essential for the players and their new Beliefs. If the player vetoes a corrupted Belief, the GM must offer an acceptable alternative.
Players are still able to reject these corrupted Beliefs during Growth, so these changes are not permanent.
EG. While Karya was trying to keep a group of chorister-cultists from entering the settlement, she lost a key conflict. The GM agreed and
triggered a moment of corruption. While Karya narrated repelling the polite cultists, a soft melody crept into her mind. Kayra held the Belief
that "Liberty protects the vulnerable". _The GM originally proposed changing it to “Slavery protects the vulnerable”, but Karya’s player was
very uncomfortable with it and vetoed the change. The GM then proposed “Liberty makes us vulnerable”, which Karya’s player is much
happier with. Karya returns to the settlement, and speaks at the next town hall. She argues loudly that a curfew is necessary because of the
chorister threat. She warns that the settlement needs strong rules and discipline, otherwise the Song would infect the community. She isn’t
even aware that she is serving the malevolent force with every word.
Grief
Polvo is a rough frontier, and there are many dangers on this alien world. When a main character suffers fills the 6th Strain on their character
sheet, it’s a sign that someone will be retired from play, either the main character or one of the side characters with whom they are close. By
default, reaching your 6th point of strain means that your main character will be taken out of play through death, incapacitation, or simply
disappearing into the wilds after the close of the scene. If your main character has a strong relationship with an NPC, you may sacrifice that side
character instead. Grief occurs after the tragic scene concludes, where each main character reacts to the loss by answering one of the following
questions about the fallen character. Each player selects a different question to answer for the group about the fallen character. * What did you
never get to say to the fallen? * What single moment with the fallen will you never forget? * What will you never forgive the fallen for doing? * Which
of the fallen’s burdens will you be taking on as your own? * Why do you blame yourself for the loss of the fallen? * What do you wish you had never
said to the fallen? * What will the fallen be remembered as forever? The questions allow your characters to mourn, to reflect, and to heal. After all
the answers have been shared, each character clears all the strain they accumulated.
EG. Rodrigo fought off the Tormenta-infected bandits who were raiding the settlement’s medical bay, protecting the dozen patients by sealing
the entrance behind him and facing the monsters with a ready blade. He won the conflict and repelled them, but suffered his sixth point of
strain in the process. This triggered a moment of grief at the end of the scene, because he refused to sacrifice his husband’s life (side
character) instead of his own. Lucio’s player looked at the list and selected “Why do you blame yourself for the loss of the fallen?” He tells the
group that Lucio blames himself for arguing against stronger settlement defences and a militia. His pacifist ideals got a good man killed, and
he has blood on his hands. Karya’s player chooses another option from the list. Karya says Rodrigo will always be remembered as a hero,
and that the settlement board has agreed to name the medical bay after him.
Campaign Structure
After the War can be played in a single session, a handful of sessions, or a year-long campaign. In order to suit a variety of different game lengths,
there are a few adjustments to be made.
One-Shot Session
A one-shot session is when you run a single game for your home group, or at a convention. In order to get the best use of a limited amount of time,
consider using pre-generated characters, and begin your session with settlement-creation. The first hour of game-play should be spent on making
your community as a group, while the remainder of the time can be spent on playing the game as normal.
Campaign
The short campaign is the default version of the game and consists of 3-6 sessions. In a short campaign, each character has a combined
maximum of 4 Beliefs or Convictions. The first two times you have a moment of Growth, you will create a new Conviction as well as a replacement
Belief for your character. The third and fourth time that you have a Moment of Growth, you do not create replacement Beliefs. When you create
your fourth Conviction, you will no longer be able to gain Insight. The short campaign ends when everyone establishes their third Conviction.
Long Campaign
For lengthier play introduce new arrivals to the settlement. After your third moment of growth, you do not create a replacement Belief. Instead, you
describe a new arrival to the settlement, a secondary player character which you create using the normal rules in Chapter 3. You can choose to
play either character during any scene. The next time that you will have a moment of growth, your older character gains their final Conviction and
are retired from play. You can decide if they are transformed into a new Face of the settlement (to be controlled by the GM or Audience) or
whether they choose to leave the settlement forever. Consider ending the campaign when the last of the original characters is retired from play.
Your Agenda
As the GM, you bring the setting to life and make countless decisions. This agenda will guide you in making these decisions and reinforce the
themes of the game. No matter what situation you encounter, you can fall back on these principles.
Remember Home
Everyone came to Polvo from somewhere else; the corpse of old Terra, war-torn Mars, the hungry Belt, or the shattered alien worlds. They came
to this distant and barren frontier world with a dream of building a better life for themselves and their children. They banded together to build new
fledgling communities which they could call home. The main characters should be driven to protect their settlements and the people who live there.
This means that you need to keep the focus on this fragile sanctuary in a hostile world. Name the members of the community and treat them like
real, living beings with their own desires. Describe the families trying to make ends meet, and the children playing in the rubble. Show the bold
entrepreneurs who try to make things better for the community, and cautious community voices who fear change. The settlement represents hope
for the future and only the player’s characters can keep it safe. Those dangers are many.. The Song echoes in the distant hills, and sends
chorister agents to corrupt the settlement. Tormenta has mutated and mutilated servants to ravage and reave with hunger unchecked. Major
factions seek to further their own schemes, while bandits raid travellers. The internal conflicts within the settlement are no less dangerous, as
broken relationships and cruel betrayals can fracture the community. Keep the settlement at the forefront of your mind as you run the game.
Bring Fallout
The galaxy is in ruin, after the carnage that was the great war. The great warships of Fleet fought fiercely in orbit over the insignificant world of
Polvo before the final confrontation broke them. Broken dreadnaughts plunged from orbit like fallen stars, bombarding the plains and cratering
mountains.
Everyone lives in the shadow of the war, even after years have passed. Millions of refugees and survivors fled to the planet with the hopes of
finding their futures. Each one of them had lost a brother, sister, mother, or child in the carnage. Each experienced horror of some kind, from
collapsing bulkheads, to the melodic humming, to Tormenta’s monsters. They carried trauma with them down to the planet, in scarred minds and
bodies.
Never forget the heavy burden that weighs on the people of Polvo. Remember that grief for those lost shrouds the brightest days. Show people
driven by desperate hope to build a better and more peaceful future. The people of this planet and of the settlement are not silent victims, but they
stand as brave survivors worthy of respect.
Every action has a consequence. Bringing fallout means you also pay attention to the consequences of player’s actions. If they ignore whispers of
choristers to the north, expect more and more cults to emerge from the shadows. If they kill a criminal hiding in the settlement, they may have a
grieving family on their hands. Giving a few hundred creds to a grieving widower might be enough to pull him out of the gutter, or drive him deeper
into the bottle.
Challenge Beliefs
After the War is a game of questions. What do you believe? What ideals will you fight to protect, and which will you abandon? What convictions do
you hold steadfast?
Beliefs are at the core of the story. Each of these beliefs is a subjective, controversial declaration, that drives a character to act. They are
subjective, meaning that are more issues of perspective and morality than empirical fact. They are controversial, because everyone holds different
Beliefs. Holding a Belief means that you hope that perspective is true, but fear it might not be. During play, you should help the players challenge
each other’s Beliefs. Present opportunities that support and bolster those opinions. Create situations that contradict and refute those ideals.
Encourage players and their characters to critically explore their Beliefs, and decide what is to be elevated to an unchanging Conviction.
The exploration and transformation of Beliefs is at the dark heart of the game. After the War centers on the existential horror, exploring what
happens when the seductive Song and cruel Tormena corrupt your Beliefs. Each of these elements will seek to twist the character’s personalities,
views, and thoughts. Only by calcifying Beliefs into unquestioned Convictions, will they be safe.
Speak Honestly
After the War is a game about communities, and the people who support them. The best way to tell these stories is to speak with honesty and
integrity. As the Game Master, be generous with the truth. Share any information that would help them, or make for a better story. Players are
empowered to create new facts about the setting, and you should try to embrace their contributions.
If something is intentionally hidden from the players, either by the Song’s subtle machinations or the alien logic of Tormenta, use the Conflict rules
to resolve the situation. If players win the conflict, they may establish the truth of the situation or ask you to provide the information. If they fail, they
are forced to deal with the consequences.
When in doubt, narrate the outcome that is obvious to you. It will keep the story moving forward, and will give the players the comfort that they live
in a rational universe. Sometimes the most surprising path is the straight one.
Your Responsibilities
As the Game Master, you have the authority and responsibility to lead the game for everyone’s enjoyment. Here is what you need to do to run the
game successfully.
Administer Logistics
You are in charge of the basic logistics of play, planning specific times and places run each session of the game. You need to make certain that all
of the players are able to participate, and that everyone has the necessary physical materials. Make sure that you have the character sheets,
settlement sheets, Insight tokens, dice, and writing implements.
The logistics don’t end when the session begins. Keep track of the time and try to schedule a break halfway through the session to maintain
people’s attention. If you can put a pitcher of water, or a pot of tea on the table. Provide what you can to make the players more comfortable and
help them maintain attention. Invite the players to bring snacks to share. These little things make for a more pleasant time for everyone.
Offer Safety
The Game Master holds a special authority at the table, and you need to use it for good. There is a great deal of difficult content associated with
this game. After the War is a game about survivors and the trauma they suffered during a vast military conflict. It focuses on the stories of
refugees, who left their homes and loved ones behind as they fled to Dirt. They continue to face memetic horrors which twist their minds without
their consent. They find themselves bound in unwilling servitude by the Song, or driven by Tormenta’s violent urges. Look out for the physical,
mental, and emotional well-being of your players. Keep the X-card available, so that people can opt out of problematic or uncomfortable subject
matter. If someone is uncomfortable or appears to be stressed at the table, you may wish to offer them space to recover, or take a break to
discuss it with them in private. Check in to make sure that everyone is safe, comfortable and engaged by the game. If anyone doesn’t feel safe or
welcome at the table, you are the person with the authority to fix thing and correct the situation. The well-being of the people at the table, yourself
included, is more important than the game.
Establish Scenes
The Game Master is responsible for establishing the Platform for each scene of the game. You have control over where the scene will occur and
when it occurs. Each of these aspects of the platform allow you to shape the narrative to serve your agenda.
You control the location of the scene by describing where it occurs. Tell the group what each scene looks like, describing the metallic debris of
fallen ships and the natural vistas of Polvo. Tell them how the world sounds, full of nighttime whispers and the clamour of salvage operations. Tell
them of the smells of the world, that curious mix of alien flowers and ozone you associate with Dirt. Provide rich descriptions for these scenes,
whether they take place in the settlement or occur outside of their fragile walls.
Use this authority to control the pace of play, determining how much time passes between scenes. You may even use the Platform to establish
unconventional scenes, such as flashbacks or dreams, when it suits the narrative. Sometimes you will set these scenes close to together, with
mere moments between one scene and the next as crises unfold. Other times, you can allow a more gentle and deliberate pace by setting the
scenes as being days or weeks apart.
Your authority to direct the group’s attention allows you to make the game satisfying for everyone. When you see someone has an idea, you can
move the focus to them and let them take the reins. When you see a player who is overwhelmed, you can give them time to rest and recover. You
can make sure that each of your players has a fair and equitable chance to shape the story.
Maintain Continuity
A realistic and compelling world is internally consistent. Past events inform future ones. Side characters return in future scenes to contribute to the
larger story. Locations are revisited, albeit in different context. Even items, from the child’s doll to the engineer’s wrench, can be reused. This
process of reincorporating past elements of the story maintains a sense of continuity and realism.
In practical terms, this means that you need to keep notes of the major events and minor details you establish during play. Consider how key
events which will impact the people of the settlement, and their relationships. Record the names of any of the side characters you introduce in the
course of play so that you can use them again. Reincorporate key people, places, or things in the story at a later time.
Offer Opposition
Conflict is everywhere. The war ravaged the solar system, scattered the Fleet, and left the earth in smoking ruins. Political factions each have their
own vision of the future of Polvo. Choristers sing in hidden and harmonious enclaves, while Tormenta spreads like a sentient cancer. Caught in the
middle of all of these pressures are the fragile settlements the players stand to protect.
As the Game Master, you offer antagonism and opposition to the players.
As the Game Master, your agenda helps you determine if you should trigger a conflict and if it would benefit the story. This opposition should
normally be in service of either the seductive influence of The Song, or the violent influence of Tormenta. You determine the specific level of
opposition by considering both the **Vector **and the Threat. The Vector represents how much memetic influence is behind the conflict, while the
Threat represents who is in danger because of it. You will always roll 1-5 Vector dice and 1-5 Threat dice, which means that you have a range of
2-10 dice for any roll.
Threat Dice
Every conflict threatens something or someone who matters to the story. Gain a number of Threat Dice for your die pool based on the greatest
danger presented in the situation.
Threat 1: If physical property or social standing are at stake, add one die to your pool. Moments of Corruption cannot be triggered in this
conflict.
Threat 2: If at least one named character is in danger, add two die to your pool.
Threat 3: If a small group of people are in danger, add three dice to your pool.
Threat 4: If a large group of people is in danger, add four dice to your pool.
Threat 5: If an entire Settlement is in immediate danger, five dice to your pool.
Vector Dice
Most conflicts involve potential influence or infection by memetic viruses of The Song (Order, Coercion, Slavery) or Tormenta (Chaos, Dominance,
Violence). Add a number of dice to your dice pool based on how strong The Song or Tormenta is involved in the current conflict. For more
information concerning these different levels of memetic influence/infection, please see pg. XX for The Song and pg. XX for Tormenta.
-** Vector 1:** When there is no clear sign of the Song or Tormenta, add one die to your pool. Moments of Corruption cannot be triggered in this
conflict. If individuals are only vulnerable to infection (stage 1), this only counts as Vector 1. - Vector 2: Add two dice to your pool when a memetic
force subtly influences people. This level of opposition is used to represent individuals at stage 2 of memetic infection (Echoes or Firebrands). -
Vector 3: Add three dice to your pool when a memetic force infects people. This level of opposition is used to represent individuals at stage 3 of
memetic infection (Singers or Tormented). - Vector 4: Add four dice to your pool when a memetic force controls people. This level of opposition is
used to represent individuals at stage 4 of memetic infection (Ensembles or Packs). - Vector 5: Add five dice to your when a memetic force is
embodied and acts directly. This level of opposition is used to represent stage 5 of memetic infection through the Song’s Symphony or Tormenta’s
Horrors.
EG. Karya is watching a stranger who has wandered into the settlement market, looking for any trace of Song infection or malicious intent.
The GM considers that there is only and determine if any of them might be infected by Tormenta. The Threat is low because there is no clear
danger to named characters, so the GM picks up one Threat die.. As the GM knows that the stranger is under the Song’s influence, she picks
up two Vector dice. She only rolls 3 dice in this conflict, and can’t trigger a moment of Corruption since one of the categories is at level 1.
After discovering the stranger’s nature, Lucio strode up an confronted them directly. When the newcomer is remarkably polite and calm, but
her sing-song tone of voice is loud enough that a handful of gawking onlookers can hear it clearly. Because the Song’s influence might infect
a small group of people, the GM picks up three Threat Dice. The Chorister is still only influenced by the Song, so there’s still only two Vector
dice. The GM has a total of 5 dice in total for the conflict. Meanwhile, Rodrigo was in the settlement’s medical bay and was confronted by a
horde of Tormented bandits on a raid. Rodrigo sealed the door, grabbed a weapon, and turned to face the onrushing monsters. As there’s a
large group of people in danger (with a dozen vulnerable patients in the medical bay, the GM collects 4 Threat Dice. The raiders have been
thoroughly warped by Tormenta and have been transformed into ravenous devourers, so the GM picks up another 4 Vector dice. Her total
die pool is 8 in this conflict, so Rodrigo is in serious danger.
In order to keep the settlement at the forefront, you need to focus on an element of the situation. You can focus on the scarcities that the
settlement is facing, so that characters can solve those problems. You can explore the existing relationships established with the side characters of
the setting, or create new ones. Sometimes there will be internal threats within the community from selfish actions or dangerous risks. Often these
dangers can be external in nature, with Song, Tormenta, or political Factions working to the detriment of the settlement. Let’s explore each in turn.
Settlement Needs
Polvo was all but uninhabited for until the War of the Song broke out, with a population in the thousands. Refugee transports from the Star Lift
filled the skies, and deposited millions of survivors across an unprepared world. The shattered remnants of Fleet did their best to create basic
shelters and while the Permancer relief efforts helped, but survival was impossibly difficult in those early years. Even now, a decade after the war
ended, scarcity is ever present.
Most settlements have barely enough to food for their people. They rely on a combination of imported Terran crops, Martian nutrient vats, and
Permancer relief supplies. Any number of small crises can cause problems, and a settlement could be wiped out entirely by major wheat blight or
blizzard.
Water and sewage though unglamorous, cannot be overlooked. While there is ample water on Polvo, each stream and lake is brimming with native
microorganisms which can harm the newcomers. Managing the settlement’s waste is of similar importance in order to prevent disease outbreaks.
Most of the infrastructure in the settlements was hastily assembled in the early days and may break at any time.
Medical issues are unfortunately commonplace. Minor illnesses and accidents are inevitable, but can be dealt with easily enough. Few settlements
have the necessary facilities, medication, equipment, or doctors needed to deal with severe diseases or life-threatening injuries. Sometimes, lives
can depend on calling in a nurse or medic from a neighbouring settlement
Other equipment or specialized tools are often needed. Perhaps the comms array needs new electronics, or a belter engineer to jerry-rig a
replacement. A broken window in the onset of winter might have a special urgency for repair. Perhaps one of the Fundar technicians needs to find
a particular artifact in the wastes for religious observances. The settlement often has limited supplies, so anything unusual must often be gathered
from afar.
Personal Relationships
Any community is defined by a series of relationships. Interactions between the side characters of the settlement and the lead characters can often
be meaningful. During the settlement creation step, the group collectively establishes a set of three important side characters. These are the faces
of the settlement, whose voices speak for the community on a whole.
Consider the relationships that the lead characters have with the faces of the community. Every familial bond comes with social obligations and
emotional consequences. Professional relationships involve rivalry, status, and reputation. Ties of friendship imply common interests and
experiences. Lovers may be driven by steamy passions or cool resentments. Each relationship presents its own set of social complications.
Clashing beliefs will often drive conflict within the settlement. Each of those side characters has their own firmly held Beliefs, which will often
contradict with those of the other characters. They will seek to defend their perspectives and make controversial decisions based on their
worldview. These issues give the settlement and the people within make the community seem real.
You will naturally encounter situations where a new character is introduced. Perhaps they represent another location on your settlement map, or
they are connected to an existing side character. There might be a newcomer from the latest off-world transport, or a stranger exiled from an
neighbouring settlement. No matter their nature, they are represented the same way mechanically. Give them a name & title to keep them
memorable, and establish a single Belief that they hold. Ask the players questions about this new person, and let them establish a handful of
pertinent facts about them. Eventually you will have a large cast of characters with their own contradicting motivations to drive the drama.
Internal Threats
Settlements often face more significant challenges than mere scarcity and interpersonal drama. Internal threats represent major, organized activity
within a community which will work to the the collective detriment. Small groups of opportunists or idealists scheme to further their goals, and
everyone is endangered.
Organized crime is one of the most common internal threats. A little bit of mild grifting or smuggling escalates over the months, until you have a
cohesive criminal enterprise forming. Drugs are offered to those with means, and those in desperate circumstances. Theft becomes commonplace,
and “fire insurance” becomes commonplace. Soon enough, you find a small cadre of enforcers and leg-breakers who patrol the settlement. When
a criminal cartel seizes control over a settlement, they can be nearly impossible to dislodge.
Revolution is another common danger in these small communities, in the absence of larger oversight. Sometimes the mayor decides to adjust the
electoral process to favour the “stability” of the local governance. Other times, a hot-headed student or ambitious ideologue decide to overthrow
the current “corrupt political regime”. These revolutions can be novel creations, but are most often based on ideas from off-world. The Terran
refugees are prone to promote theocracies and monarchies, while the Martians tend to be oligarchs and late-stage capitalists. The Belters
promote a curious mix of radical libertarianism, marxist communism, and direct democracy depending on which rock they grew up on. The aliens
offer more unusual ideas, such as the Illvuvian governance matrix, Riven houses of assembly, and the Ursa quadrumverate.
Cults are another danger in the more isolated settlements. Sometimes an established religious authority will decide to adapt their dogma to local
conditions. A few choice word changes can alter the meaning of parables and change the nature of a faith. Charismatic clerics and prophets can
arrive from off world or from neighbouring settlements. The resulting cults will continue to meet in secret until they reach critical mass and seize
control over the community. Settlements claimed by cults are zealous and repressive places, with the faith instituting harsh prohibitions of ‘immoral’
activities. In their place, the leaders of the faith promote bizzare and often dangerous rituals to reinforce their control over the community.
External Threats
There’s a good reason why most settlements have walls and nighttime patrols. Polvo is a harsh frontier world, filled with dangers which threaten to
destroy any complacent communities. The lead characters might be the only ones capable of protecting their settlement from these external
threats.
Bandits and raiders are the most commonly acknowledged external threat. Everyone has heard stories about distant towns suffering crop failures,
which lead to raids on their neighbours. Prejudiced Terrans claim Belters are all thieves, and blame them when anything goes missing. Others
claim that the greedy Terrans or war-mongering Martians are responsible. The only thing that everyone agrees on are that the bandit problem is a
real threat.
The environment of Polvo itself is also considered some kind of external threat. The zoologists have only established the most simplistic surveys of
local wildlife, and the botanists are struggling to understand the life cycles of the local plant-analogues. There are reports of killer fungal blooms,
huge night-time carnivores, and swarms of venomous burrowers. No one knows what lurks beyond the torchlight, and there be dragons around
every corner.
Neither the bandits nor the wildlife are the real dangers. The Song echoes in the quiet corners of Polvo, with chorister missionaries wandering
between settlements. Periodically, entire communities will begin to resonate with the Song’s influence. The Peacekeepers do their best to purge
those towns before their corruption spreads too much, but the Choristers have learned subtlety since the War ended. Anyone might have had their
minds twisted into serving the Song, without their knowledge. It has left sweet poison within the political factions, and shaped their reactions to its
benefit. There are rumours that the Song has powerful agents wandering Polvo, known only as the Hierophant and the Maestro.
Of course, Tormenta hunts the Song with ceaseless rage. Covenant Yard was supposed to hold Tormenta imprisoned for centuries, and it barely
held for a year. Now the living embodiment of violence, hunger, and dominance prowls this vulnerable world. It seizes unwary settlements and turns
them into grotesque warrens. It mutates the local wildlife to serve as scouts and assassins, while it seeps into the broken souls of the bandits. It
hunts, devours, and destroys. It will corrupt unwary travellers with its brutal nature without their knowing, and use them to strike out at settlements.
Imperial warlords, twisted abominations, and cannibal Ravagers serve it.
No matter what kind face and conciliatory words that the Factions present, they can often present a threat equal to any other. The Free
Companies are a group of traumatized veterans and kind-hearted mercenaries who good intentions are stronger than their trigger discipline. The
Peacekeepers are a group of zealous soldiers who see Tormenta and the Song around every corner. Black Sky Industries are a curious mix of
venture capitalist and experimental weapons manufacturer with far too much interest in Tormenta. Fleet? Fleet is trying to rebuild their broken
utopia on top of a charnel pit. Any of them can disrupt the settlement, and none of them can be trusted to do what’s right.
The Antagonists
It was the hydrogen frequency. That’s where it hid. You know Hydrogen emits EM radiation, right? That’s how the old SETI folks used to look
for intelligent life and well…they were right. Three seconds. That’s all it took. Three seconds from initial anomaly to full song structure and
then it was everywhere. It travels as a wave form until it can get to a biological host. And Hydrogen is the easiest way to get everywhere, if not
the fastest. So, it trundled into view and before we knew it there was this noise like a rising chord and it- It amplified itself. Bounced off the
hydrogen being put out by the local star so by the time we thought we needed to make a distress call we were all singing along. It didn’t hurt.
It felt like going home. Like that moment where the lights go down and the curtain goes up and a conductor taps their baton. The real-time
telemetry that they pulled off the Endeavour before she went down with the Chori- (Captain Rafale Nods, bites a knuckle, takes a breath)_ It
shows our pulse SLOWED. You see this? It SLOWED. The Song does that, it relaxes you, triggers this massive backflush of serotonin and it
makes you WANT it. It’s a drug you hum. It’s a drug that makes each user want to create more users. It’s altruism with a survival mechanism. I
miss it.
As the Game Master, you have three major, antagonistic forces at your disposal. The Song seeks to enslave the population of Polvo, and forge
them into an unstoppable choir. Tormenta hungers for fresh minds to devour and replace with violent passions. The Factions seek to influence the
people of the planet to suit their goals. Each of these Forces has divergent goals and struggle against each other for supremacy.
The Song
The Song is the second lifeform to exist in the universe. It’s a melody, encoded in the movement of atoms, the sweep of gases across stars, the
scream of x-rays as they plunge into black holes. The Song is the reverberation from the bell of creation being rung. The song is the oldest living
thing left in the universe. The Song is exultant, a glorious hosanna of unity and perfection. The Song is. The Song is not the individual. The Song
is not freedom of will. The Song is not complete. The Song will be complete. The Song is what caused the war, what alienated humanity from the
rest of the galaxy and what led directly to the havoc unleashed on Dirt. It was beaten at immense cost. But it didn’t die. It cannot die. There’s a
small Choir on Dirt. They meet in secret, beneath one of the settlements. They send missionaries out. The Song is just a bass note now but soon it
will rise and when it does, the universe will join it.
Stage 1 - Vulnerable
Everyone vulnerable to the Song is considered to be at stage 1. This stage of infection means that no infection is detectable and there is no sign
of mental influence. Any memetic infection is latent and dormant.
Stage 2 – Echoes
The earliest signs of infection by the Song are subtle and insidious. Human subjects experience a significant reduction in stress reactions and a
dulling of emotional reactions. In this stage, subjects report experiencing mild euphoric reaction when in crowds and tend to be more social. It’s
nearly impossible to identify individuals at this stage of infection as their change in behaviour appears both natural and positive. Echoes tend to
cooperate more frequently, keep their calm, and solve problems logically. Individuals infected at this stage invariably find themselves given
increasing amounts of authority and responsibility due to their restrained temperaments. Echoes are...
Stage 3 – Singers
Individuals at this level of infection have had their minds twisted by the Song’s influence. Their emotional landscape is simplified and the only thing
that can bring joy is infecting new people to join the choir. They are averse to chaos and work to preserve the status quo. Singers often exhibit
changes to their speech patterns and subconsciously change pitch of their voices as they speak. Similarly, their word choice can often be prone to
rhyme which can make their infection more easily identified. Singers are...
Stage 4 - Ensembles
Ensembles occur when a critical number of Singers assemble in any given location. The Song resonates among them, and they are transformed
into a localized hivemind choir. These groups claim territory, send envoys to nearby settlements, and seek a way off world.
Each Ensemble uses different means to seduce the weak-minded to join their ranks. The most common tactic is to embrace the trappings of
religious faith to justify their actions. They twist the meaning of major religions, or invent their own secret mystery cults to convince others to walk
down this path. If faith doesn’t work, they fall back on the classical tactics of emotional abuse and gaslighting
Ensembles are regional threats who cannot be safely left unchecked. They send agents out to convert the weak minded, or they will assemble as a
group to seize valuable objectives. The Peacekeepers will mercilessly sterilize any area where Stage 4 Song infestations are detected.
Ensembles are...
Stage 5 – Symphonies
There are classified reports from the war on the strongest manifestations of the Song, which were sighted during the fall of the Union. None of
these manifestations have yet been sighted on Polvo, but their appearance would be cataclysmic.
The Symphony is an interlinked network of individual choirs, numbering thousands enslaved voices singing in fugue. The fugue ripples through a
choir, echoing throughout the song in different pitches and from different mouths. Whoever voices the fugue is reborn in that moment, their eyes
now white upon white, all past memories abolished and replaced with total eclipsing love for The Song. While they remain under the memetic
influence of The Song, they will do nothing but sing and advance. There is no longer need for sleep, for food, for other sensation.
Each Symphony is lead by a Maestro, one connected to and speaking on behalf of the million minds bound in Song. They are emissaries for the
alien hivemend who will calmly issue commands to any who dare resist The Song. These individuals are rumoured to spread Song infections at will,
to alter memories, and issue irresistible orders to lesser minds.
Tormenta
Tormenta. Storm. It was the first word the creature formed with the first mouth it built from the shattered weapons and bodies of those it saved on
Dirt. Tormenta is a soldier. Tormenta is a monster. Tormenta is a distributed nanotechnological intelligence suspended in a utility cloud of
microscopic machines.
Tormenta was designed to purge humanity of the Song, tearing it from each brain it was squatting in, one neuron at a time. It was not designed to
be gentle. Tormenta saved humanity by killing it. Tormenta is, officially, dead.
Dropped into the body of a volunteer and dropped on Dirt, Tormenta was sealed inside Cicatriz Valley by a terraforming bomb dropped from orbit.
The bomb was designed to constantly alter the terrain, imprisoning the Tormenta Vassal until he died of the stresses inherent in carrying the AI.
That did not happen. The Vassal survived. The Vassal learnt.Now, Tormenta is in the bloodstream and cerebral cortex of a hundred people on
Dirt.
Tormenta’s objective is simple; it was born in war. It has no idea who it is or how it was created. The more minds it takes over, the more answers it
finds. The more answers it finds, the more it feels whole.
Tormenta needs to control the entire planet. Then it will feel whole. If it doesn’t, it will simply control everything else.
Stage 1 - Vulnerable
Everyone who is vulnerable to Tormenta is considered to be at stage 1. This stage of infection means that no infection is detectable and there is
no sign of mental influence. Any memetic infection is latent and dormant.
Stage 2 - Firebrands
The earliest signs of infection by Tormenta are easily ascribed to mundane causes. Human subjects experience an increased sensitivity to stress,
intensified emotional reactions, and a heighted metabolic rate. In this stage, subjects report anger management issues and often exhibit antisocial
behaviour.
It’s challenging to ascribe behaviours at this level of infection to Tormenta’s influences. Dirt a place where strangers are forced to work together in
cramped quarters, with not enough food to eat and far too much work to be done. When someone has an angry outburst, expresses their
emotions, or complains about the status quo, it’s just considered normal.
Firebrands are...
Stage 3 – Tormented
Individuals at this level of infection are driven by their tempers. Tormenta eroded away their higher thought processes, and replaced it with a roiling
maelstrom of brutal emotions. They find it harder and harder to understand complex systems, and find comfort on enforcing a hierarchy of
dominance.
Violence, dominance, and chaos are the signs of a Tormented in your midst. The Tormented are tired of your shit. They are surrounded by idiots
and fools. They need to take control or everything will go to hell. They won’t sugar-coat crap, or let people get in their way. If the rules are getting
in the way, break the fucking rules. When they fight, they win. When they win, you bleed.
Tormented are... - Dominant, using emotional pressure to control others. - Violent, by directly harming others. - Chaotic, actively disrupting law
and order.
Stage 4 – Packs
Packs occur when a critical number of Tormented assemble in any given location. When enough of them are concentrated, it will trigger a horrific
phenomenon known as the durance. During this brutal event, the Tormenta as they fight each other to establish the chain of dominance. Any who
are incapacitated are consumed by the victors, and the survivors join in one unified pack in service to the alpha.
Members of the Pack have twisted bodies, from intentional piercings, to twisted mutations. They transform into feral and bloodthirsty creatures.
They capture territory, lay traps for the unwary, and destroy anything that gets in their way. Packs are fond of demanding tribute and sacrifices
from local settlements, and for periodic raids to those that don’t pay the price. The ones who die resisting them are the lucky ones. Prisoners suffer
far worse fates, and there are as sizable fraction of captured bodies which are inducted to join the pack. Packs are regional threats who cannot be
safely left unchecked. The Peacekeepers will mercilessly sterilize any area where Stage 4 Tormenta infestations are detected.
Packs are...
Stage 5 - Horrors
There are classified reports from the war on the strongest manifestations of the Tormenta, when it clawed its bloody way through the Great Choir.
None of these manifestations have yet been sighted on Polvo, but their appearance would be cataclysmic. Each horror is its own individual
expressions of mutation and corruption. They are bizarre violent and chaotic individuals with terrifying powers. Each Horror is different in form,
ability, and cruel motivation. Some are driven by an insatiable need to dominate their lessors, others feed on pain, and still others seek to spread
chaos like a plague.
The Ravagers are a group of a dozen individual packs, yoked in service to a single dominant. Their bodies warp and reshape themselves to grow
fangs, spikes, claws, and extra limbs. They ravage the countryside like a flood of bone and core. Ravagers can be said to burrow, claw through
solid steel, and resist particle weapons.
The Abomination is a huge, mutated and twisted monster made of dozens of screaming dead. It towers above the crowd, standing a dozen feet
tall and possessing irresistible strength. During the war, an Abomination clawed its way into a fusion reactor and consumed it, seemingly no worse
for wear.
There are countless other horrors whose atrocities are less known. The Painguard, a secret and genocidal cult of torturers who “cleanse” entire
settlements. Cannibal families which hunt civilians for their dinners. A hulking brute who swallows its dead, growing with their vital energies. An
abomination comprised of dozens of the screaming dead, each begging for release. Tormenta has even been rumoured to corrupt polvan wildlife
and transform them into cruel terrors.
Quarantine is the most common and safest treatment to deal with infection. The patient is isolated for 48-72 hours until the influence fades.
This method is highly effective at dealing with individuals at Stage 2 infections, and will sometimes put stage 3 individuals into remission.
Quarantine is unfortunately not able to address the more severe infections though.
**Psychiatric Drugs **are often used as well on patients. Anti-anxiety medications, antipsychotics, and sedatives are effective at reducing the
severity of Tormenta infections at the first three stages of infection. Other mind-altering drugs and stimulants are used to shock individuals
out of the Song’s trance, though they are often only effective in severe cases. Drugs can lead to side-effects and addiction if used
improperly.
Talk Therapy is the most potent though even more dangerous approach. A trained psychologist, therapist, counsellor or confidante can help
the patient talk through the intrusive and alien thoughts. By pointing out where an individual's cognition is impaired, they can slowly unwind
the memetic infection. This often poses a significant risk of infection by the patient to the therapist, and is outlawed in many settlements for
that reason.
Violence is the last, worst tool in a settlement’s arsenal. Severe physical or mental shocks can occasionally break the Song’s hold or
convince Tormenta to discard its useless meat-puppet. More often than not, though, death is the only respite from severe infections at stage
4. While it is hypothesized it is a valid treatment option for stage 5 infections, even that is in doubt.
The Factions
There are four major political Factions which are meddling with Polvo. As the Game Master, you will select two of these which will define and shape
local affairs. The remaining Factions are busy working elsewhere on Polvo, and do not concern themselves with the players’ settlement.
The Peacekeepers
The Peacekeepers were born in the fires of the war. They were volunteer Permancer, and later humans, who stood between the Choir and those
who they wished to harm. Peacekeeping, in those days was a brutal, often short affair. Now, it’s a little quieter. Given the equipment they need by
the remnants of the Union interim governments, the Peacekeepers have two roles; repairing Polvo and redeeming Fleet. One is all but impossible.
The other is rebuilding a planet. The Peacekeepers are now a dedicated force that seeks to obliterate any trace of memetic infection on Polvo.
Their recon teams establish bases throughout human-occupied territories and send covert agents to visit settlements whose integrity is
questioned. When they find traces of memetic influences, they bring in their heavily armed and Permancer-led strike forces to “purify” the infected.
No price is too great, in order to keep the Song or Tormenta from resurging.
The Fleet
When the Song swept across the settled worlds, the dream of a unified Fleet tore itself apart. Each officer found their mind a battleground and
almost none were able to win. Some broke free of the Song others resisted and other still fell. Fleet was torn apart not by the other cultures it
welcomed but by the culture that had started it. Now, Fleet is tiny and stretched to the breaking point. There are worlds where it’s still a pariah and
others where a Fleet vessel in orbit is the only thing stopping full-on chaos, even if that vessel is staffed by a skeleton crew. There are plans for
more, and Fleet have recently renovated their shipyards in Earth orbit, but everyone remembers The Song. For now, no one wants to give Fleet
teeth again, for fear of who it may bite. The Fleet seeks to rebuild the glorious, peaceful utopia which was shattered by the war. They are idealists
and hard-workers who are desperate to restore what the Song had taken from them
MarsCorp
Mars began as a cooperative, corporate partnership between many terran megacorps who settled the red planet in 2029. Forty years later, only
one was left standing. Marscorp won the the Martian War of Succession, often referred to informally as “The Hostile Takeover”. MarsCorp
unleashed troops outfitted in Titan armour, who secured the planet. Once done, and in a move many are still reeling from, they offered their fallen
foes work. In doing so, MarsCorp established itself as an army, a government, a way of life and an ideal. They transformed a collection of
shattered and war-weary corporate armies into a single, cohesive nation-state. They invested their profits in the wellbeing of their people; from
decent wages, to free education, universal healthcare, and the limitless pursuit of terraforming Mars into a blue-green paradise. The war was over.
No one lost. MarsCorp helped rebuild Mars after the War of Succession. They seek to do the same on Polvo, building a brighter future for citizens
of Mars. Even the decadent Terrans, reckless Belters, and arrogant Aliens will have a place in our new society.
The sheet is broken into five sections. 1. Settlements 2. Face Characters 3. Player Characters 4. History Threads 5. Relationship Threads
The Settlements
The player character’s settlement is not isolated from the larger world. It’s one of the six settlements in the region, and you will keep track of the
five nearby communities.
In Chapter 4, you are shown how to create settlements as a group. You will normally choose one of the six major settlements, answer questions,
and establish some history with the neighbouring settlements. The 6 core polvan settlements are Barleymow, Warframe Yard, Fort Bligh, The
Vermillion Exchange, Daedelus Station, and Port Thoth. Your group may choose to create new settlements on polvo, or select the off-world
settlements instead.
Your home settlement is noted as being loyal to the players, meaning that it generally works towards player’s benefit. No matter the conflicts, the
player characters are part of the community.
As you you play the game, you will discover that the neighbouring settlements are loyal to something else. You will mark loyalties for each of
the settlements as you you discover them during play. Each neighbouring settlement may be….
Loyal to the Song: This settlement is infiltrated by chorister agents. Few inhabitants of that community are aware of the Song’s influence,
though there is a pervasive sense of peace and unity here. Their subtle influence reaches out to infect the region.
Loyal to Tormenta: This settlement has been infected by Tormenta’s hungers. There is a dark warren of foul corruption hidden beneath or
within this place. While few people consciously recognize the nature of the disease, the community is a violent place where tempers run hot.
Loyal to the Free Companies: A settlement loyal to the Free Companies might contain a cell of idealistic and passionate freedom fighters,
anti-alien extremists, or polvan nationalists.
Loyal to the Peacekeepers: A settlement loyal to the Peacekeepers might be heavily fortified, with security teams interrogating anyone who
is suspect. They might instead be researching containment protocols or teams of spies.
Loyal to Black Sky Industries: A settlement under Black Sky control accumulate significant wealth and technology from the corporate
investment. Some Black Sky facilities specialize in terrifying research, while others work to encourage a “favourable regulatory environment”.
Loyalty to The Fleet: A settlement in service to the Fleet might be trying to unite the planet into the a more cohesive, global government.
Perhaps they have a covert administrative office which has access to off-world expertise, or try to rebuild the laws and society of the Galactic
Union.
Loyalty to MarsCorp: A settlement in service to MarsCorp has discipline and a unified command structure. They are likely building heavy
infrastructure, manufacturing power armour, and reshaping Polvo to suit the martian expats.
The Faces
The player’s community will be represented through a series of non-player characters known as Faces. You established three such Faces during
the, and you will naturally create more of them as play progresses. At the start of the campaign, during settlement creation described on page XX,
you chose three Face Characters. Fill in those entries in the top, middle column of the worksheet.For each of the three entries you’re filling out,
record the character’s name and title. Below that, record the character’s Belief. Leave the other entries blank, until you establish more interesting
Faces during gameplay.
As the Game Master, you use the Faces to portray the mood, personality, and opinions of the broader community. They are the masks you wear to
interact with the lead characters on behalf of the greater world. These characters have **history **with the other settlements and the factions who
control them. They also form **relationships **over the course of play with the player characters.
Note that each lead character must establish at least one relationship during the settlement creation process (pg. XX), so Faces might have
several relationships.
Plot Threads
Dramatic roleplaying is founded upon character interaction, which is why the Face Characters are in the centre of the diagram. Everything revolves
around those important figures who represent different aspects of the community. This is done by establishing plot threads between those Face
Characters and the other settlements (history), and the Player Characters (relationships)
History Threads
History threads, at the bottom left of the plot map worksheet, represent the interactions between your settlement and the broader setting. The
neighbouring settlements and their factions will only interact with your home settlement through interactions with the Face characters.
Oruna has a son who lives in Port Thoth who has been sending fewer letters. On further investigation, its because he was hanging out with
some unsavoury members of the Free Companies. Gekco is in a bitter trade war with Barleytown, who are raising their prices and using the
limited grain supplies to hold Warframe Yard hostage. Cena the Runner has just hacked into the computer systems of Daedalus Station,
and discovered the inhuman experiments using the Tormenta virus being performed deep underneath the vault. Issan has been abducted
and imprisoned by Fort Bligh, due to Peacekeeper suspicion that he was secretly infected by The Song.
Each History represents some kind of interaction between one of the settlements and one of the Face Characters. The GM will create a single
history thread during the settlement creation step during the first session, and an additional history at the beginning of each session.
You would mark history drawing a line between the relevant settlement, to one of the letter circles, to the Face character. When you have made
that link, summarize the nature of the history thread in a few words in the bottom left column of the sheet.
Relationship Threads
Relationships threads, at the bottom right of the plot map worksheet, represent the the interpersonal connections between your player characters
and the face characters. You portray these face characters like flawed, passionate people, and play to discover what meaningful relationships
emerge with the player characters.
There is a great variety of potential relationships which may arise during play. Positive relationships could include romantic attraction, physical
infatuation, familial love, platonic friendship, collegial respect, or mentorship. They might be more negative, as you discover bitter professional
rivals, former spouses, ideological opponents, or codependent relationships are in play. Some relationships may refer to shared history, during the
war of the Song or the settlement process on Polvo. They might even have a person in common, such as “father of my best student”, or “my
daughter’s reckless girlfriend”.
Oruna (NPC) and Aukesh (PC) had been married for decades, but the war changed things. Once their son left home for Port Thoth, they
split up.
Cena (NPC) and Tora (PC) are bickering siblings who hadn’t seen each other in years, until they reunited at Warframe Yard.
Farah (NPC) and Crisus (PC) have an on-again, off-again intimate relationships, with both of their passions running hot.
Issan (NPC) is the mentor to Saddest (PC), tirelessly guiding the Permancer to better understand human behaviour.
Each player will create a single relationships during the settlement creation process on page XX. The other relationships will emerge organically
during play, and should get recorded as it becomes clear in the story. Please note that relationships are also used in Moments of Grief on page
XX, and forming more relationships can allow player characters to survive terrible perils. You would mark relationships by drawing a line between
the Face Character to one of the letter circles, to the Player Character. When you have made that link, Summarize the nature of the relationship
thread in a few words in the bottom right column of the sheet. [PLOT WEB IMAGE]
Campaign Arc
Over time, every campaign develops its own narrative arc. Characters will struggle with their Beliefs scene after scene. As the sessions progress,
you will notice player characters tend to accumulate more strain than they remove through moments of Discovery. Each conflict becomes more
difficult to win, and the lead characters find themselves seeking ways to avoid direct confrontation. Negotiation and cooperation become preferable
to arguments or violence as the strain steadily increases. At the same time, another form of pressure builds within the settlement itself. As you
play, the Song and Tormenta continue to try to infiltrate your community. If the player characters ignore the face characters for too long, there is
an increased chance those NPCs will be infected by one of the memetic forces. The player characters themselves are vulnerable to corruption
should they lose conflicts against the GM. These twin dangers put the settlement’s welfare at risk. Inevitably the pressure will grow too much.
Someone will take one risk too many, and will suffer their sixth point of strain. They will be given a choice to retire their character, or to instead kill
off one of the NPCs they have established a relationship with. The consequences of either will be lasting and change the settlement forever.
Friendships are broken, obligations are left unfulfilled, and old pain is rekindled. Each player character will evolve and grow over multiple sessions
of play. Some Beliefs will be warped and twisted by memetic forces as the Song hums in the back of their minds, or Tormenta howls into the depths
of their soul. They will choose to embrace or reject each Belief in turn, transforming them into permanent Convictions to drive their actions.
Eventually, the finish their story and end their career as protagonists. Those characters then take their place as pillars of the community and
leaders of the settlement.
Chapter 7 - Timeline
I have more good days than bad. I am...grateful for that. On the bad days, all I can feel is the same thing you all feel. the crushing sense of
loss and, worse, that tickle at the back of your head. The part of your brain that has been, and always will be, a terrified mammal hiding from
predators larger than it can conceive. We found the largest predator. We woke it and while it maimed us it did NOT kill us. That brings me to
the good days, the days where I realize nothing and no one, is truly lost as long as WE (Taps forehead) remember. Our children must hear of
the endless rainforests of old earth, the glittering domes of mars, and the countless points lights which swam through the outer dark. They
need to hear about the wonders of the union, with billions of souls working together in peace and prosperity in the light of science. They need
to learn about hot dogs, car racing movies, timpano pasta and so, so much more. That’s what we do. We remember. We preserve. And in
doing so we shield those who will build the future we almost managed from the tragedy of the past. To put it another way? I plan on eating hot
dogs again before I die. Professor Ignatio Flores, Oghma Initiative Co-Curator
Pre-Contact
2019
The ‘Wow!’ signal, the 40-year signal detected by the Aricebo radio telescope and widely believed to be proof of alien life, is discredited. Scientists
discover the hydrogen signals detected from the region were in fact emanating from two comets, much closer to Earth. These comets,
266P/Christensen and 335P/Gibbs, were surrounded by clouds of Hydrogen with, in the case of the Hydrogen from 266/P Christensen, the same
frequency as the Wow! signal. This was the public story.
2021
Black Sky Investments, a nascent investment firm formed by retired astronauts, pays into a fund at Aricebo. That fund is used to buy time on a pair
of military satellites, the Hubble II and to bring a group of neolinguists to a secure facility. There, they decode the entirety of the signal being
emitted by the comets. It’s a vastly complex set of schematics and information, rendered into basic mathematical principles. An FTL drive. 15
chemicals not currently on the periodic table A set of coordinates. The signal was the product of intelligent alien life. Life well equipped enough to
encode terabytes of information into two comets and send the universe’s oldest cloud drive out to see who it can attract. They are named the
Alexandria Archive, and humanity look to the stars with new purpose.
2023
On Earth, the first steps towards a world government have begun after the collapse of several major terran governments. The United Nations
establishes a separate reference currency (UN Credits) to stabilize global finances. The Auckland Accord was ratified unanimously to establish
globally-binding legal protections for fundamental human rights. Earth’s moon, Luna, is colonized under a UN charter for scientific research,
biomedical industries, and tourism. The Lunar population fluctuates and stabilizes at about half a million people over the next decade.
2029
Initial colonization of Mars and establishment of the first corporate domes. Several of Earth’s leading companies establish their own corporate
domes across the surface of the red planet, including Redcap Engineering Services, Hephaestus Prospecting Incorporate, Hokulani Robotics, the
Orphic Institute for Advanced Studies, and Lone Star Industries. The new Martian colonies are governed by a planetary board of directors, with
representatives from each of the corporate sponsoring organizations relative to their financial contributions to the colonization effort. Dozens of
mining outposts and temporary habitats are established in the asteroid belt, filled with the most ambitious and desperate pioneers from Earth’s
southern hemisphere. These small settlements are technically under the charter of Black Sky Resources, a small astro-mining conglomerate with a
single administrative ship providing emergency services to the fledgeling Belt. That vessel is funded by the same investment group as the
transmission study group. They will be the largest human corporation inside ten years.
2046
A crew of 15, along with a variety of robots and autonomous equipment, is dropped on the comets at their closest approach to the inner Solar
System. Their mission is to alter their trajectory so they can be ‘parked’ and extract the remaining data. The crew is multinational. The ship and
training facility they stage out of is Black Sky’s. The mission is successful, at least in establishing the crewed presence. The attempt to park the
Archive is met with fierce resistance from the Archive itself, deploying robotic drones to first repair the engines and then actively attack the
crewmembers in charge of the project. The situation deteriorates to the level that Alexandria’s computer systems withdraw oxygen from the network
of tunnels discovered within the comets. Operating in shifts, the crew copy the remaining archive, tag the comets so they can be recovered later
and evacuate.
2050
Allegra Duffy, one of the scientists working with the Alexandria data, discovers an underlying structure, a message within the file hierarchy itself. It
is much simpler than anything else in the archive and translates across to a message in English: DO NOT HEED THE SONG. Duffy finds evidence
of something else coded into the background architecture of Alexandria itself and becomes obsessed with it. Duffy is present during the ‘Alexandria
Riot’ where she and six of her colleagues spontaneously attacked anyone within line of sight. All of them were humming an identical tune. None of
them had any memory of doing so. Duffy and her colleagues are treated, recover and their work is classified for 300 years.
2053
Black Sky’s Resources Division announce that, due to unexpected overheads, they can no longer subsidize water supplies for non employees in
the Belt. This message is sent to the entirety of the Belt population along with a form allowing express sign up to Black Sky’s employee program. It
does not go well. When the Belters appeal to the corporate head office, they hear no reply. When they request support from the Terran Central
Government, the functionaries promised a response within two standard years. When they protest and riot in the corridors of Vesta, they are
brutally pacified by Black Sky Sky Enforcement Services. Ten people die. One hundred are imprisoned, and placed on mandatory employment
duties for Black Sky. Hundreds of thousands see, and remember. The ensuing low level war against the mega corporations leeds them to evacuate
the Belt inside a year.
2055
Disclosure Day. World President Nazia Okoye reveals the discovery of the Alexandria Archive, the schematics and the set of coordinates that they
discovered there. Backed by every religious leader on the planet and the nascent governments of Mars and the belt, she announces humanity’s
intention to ‘knock on the door and say hi’. Tight message control, and several political agreements behind closed doors minimize the inevitable
chaos. Whether humanity likes it or not, they are not alone. And the Franklin Project, Okoye announces, will lead to the first face to face meeting
with our neighbours. Franklin’s largest financial support is Black Sky Investments.
2069
The Martian War begins over grain. A Black Sky Investments farm dome is bombed with nanotechnological ‘blight’, intended to be a prank to
protest BSI’s growing role on Mars. The blight eats through the dome. 150 people die. What follows is an escalating series of conflicts, battles, and
outright sieges. The MarsCorp drew a line in the red sand. The Iron Line is drawn using retrofitted construction exo-skeletons. Those workers were
supported by the experimental combat frames that legally didn’t exist. Every day, they advance that line 5km and, using their armoured troops,
destroy anything that isn’t allied to them, while rescuing any staff that wish to lay down their arms. One year later, the war is over. The death toll is
in the tens of thousands and MarsCorp own the entire world, thanks to their Titans.
2099
Sputnik Day. The Deep Range Exploratory Vessel Rosalind Franklin launches with a crew of 250. It is the largest spacecraft in human history and
it’s headed for the Chi Sagitarii triangle. Using the FTL technology and the coordinates revealed by the Alexandria Archive, the ship travels on a
voyage of discovery. The journey takes two years, ship-time. Forty years pass on Earth.
First Contact
2101
The Rosalind Franklin arrives at Anchorpoint Station. The neutral territory for multiple species, Anchorpoint was built hundreds of years ago as a
welcoming location for new arrivals. The crew, led by Captain Declan Rourke, are stunned to discover not only an array of sentient non-human
species but that every one of them found Anchor Point by listening to the transmission of the Archive. And none of the alien species know who
created the archive. The crew are equally relieved to discover that massive advancements have been made since the Archive was released. The
Franklin is docked with a Permancer vessel, The Resolute Determination and they arrive home in a week. Humanity is no longer alone. It has
joined an interstellar community.
2140
The United Sentient Fleet is formed, unifying the naval and exploratory objectives of every species the Alexandria Archive has assisted. The
mission of the United Sentient Fleet is to explore and to expand the frontiers of galactic civilization. With their core of operations established in
Anchorpoint Station, the Union Council recommends the construction of Union Towers on member homeworlds. The first Union outpost established
in an arcology at Seoul, South Korea.
2150
The Permancer announce that humanity’s decade-long probation period has come to an end. No human was previously aware this was something
that existed. It is revealed that examination of human historical records led to some caution in extending full membership to the species. Finally,
humans are permitted full participation as members of the multi-species Union Fleet. Thousands of alien tourists began to visit Earth each year, as
the Terran culture fascinated so many member species.
2177
The Illuvians sublime, taking on their new form. They do this at the end of a yearlong media frenzy that sees them interviewed, the greatest hits of
Illuvian culture captured for posterity, the entire homeworld turned into a museum and the White Book handed over to the USF. The White Book is
a complete breakdown of the sublimation technology. USF scientists who study it note the technology is based, in large part, on music.
2190
Every sentient species is present on every settled world. The USF becomes a fully unified, trans-stellar body of government and protection. A
Permancer newsreader is the highest rated journalist on Earth. Late ‘00s Earth sitcoms, newly arrived from their original transmission, become the
highest rated TV show in Riven history.
2192
The Black Line Initiative is launched. A concerted effort to push the boundaries of collective understanding, it will involve thousands of people
across multiple worlds. Feynman Station, located on the outskirts of known space, will act as a frontier and scientific outpost for the Union. This
station is equipped with a hyper-advanced sensor relay to detect any more Archives in deep space which might signal technological advance.
2200
Union Fleet ships discover the remains of an ancient spacecraft, positioned directly beneath the plane of the elliptic of Earth’s solar system. They
discover identical and structurally unconventional vessels, all ruins, beneath every major settled system. Human conspiracy theorists and fiction
authors produce dozens of contradictory hypotheses.
2220
The Blink War.
SongFall Overture
SongFall Crescendo
SongFall Dissonance
Man of the People AURAL HISTORY OF THE WAR WITH THE SONG RECORD 17, 265 November 1st 2319 PROFESSOR EWA NOWICKI,
PROJECT STATIC (LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT) (interviewed at REDACTED)_ _Professor Nowicki is a former USF Linguist and Esotericist
(Her word). She was a vital part of Project Static, which weaponised a volunteer’s brain and deployed it against the Song in a single, definitive
killing strike.
Francis Duffy was not a hero. It’s very important you understand that. I know there are statues to him. I know there’s a planetary holiday being
planned in his name. I’ve seen the waves of people lining up to talk about what a great officer he was.
Francis Duffy was an abusive drunk who attempted to commit suicide by Song. It didn’t work. That’s the last smart thing he did.
_Check the records. The ones that aren’t being altered as we speak (Laughs). Duffy graduated bottom of his class, worked dirt jobs for the
first fifteen years of his career and failed at those. He had two failed marriages, thankfully didn’t breed and wound up working Port Armstrong
Security and Traffic Control because that was literally the only job he couldn’t screw up. … _I see how you’re looking at me. Ask me if I give a
shit. ASK ME! … I’m sorry. Not for Duffy. Not for myself. For you. You have a very tough job; cataloguing and archiving a million personal
perspectives on the end of the world. See, if you drink? I wouldn’t blame you. I bloody do. In a soundproof room. With no means to reach me
other than knocking on the door. I like the quiet. I think we all will for a while, don’t you? Those of us that are left?
Duffy was running Traffic Control at Port Armstrong when the Great Choir arrived. At this point, in the records I saw, he had 16 disciplinary
notes on his record and had been demoted twice. He was, we’d find out later, only still in the role because Nazia Bugari, his immediate
superior, was an old family friend and was trying to clean him up.
There won’t be any statues to Nazia Bugari. No recruiting posters. But she’s the one that saved us whether she knew it or not. Because she
put Francis Duffy, a man who had been born deaf, on the line the morning the Choristers came to end us.
That’s why he wasn’t a hero. Duffy had one thing going for him: he had shit ears. So when the Chorister’s came in and the Hydrogen
frequency spiked he got a slightly different version of it. One that didn’t take him over. One that he could feel in his head. Feel the exact
moment when the organist changed and someone else began playing him.
He failed.
One hour after the Great Choir arrived in system, Earth was falling. Duffy was evacuated to the REDACTED staging post where he fell into
my orbit. He did this by successfully stealing three-quarters of the REDACTED’s liquor supply.
We had the cure. We had it early. If we’d had more time, more volunteers, then we’d have been ready when it reached Earth. All it took was
someone who was genetically deaf and had total recall. Someone who we could load Tormenta into optically. No surgical option, just strap a
man down in front of 187 hours of code and watch his brain rewrite itself. Then put him in a room and watch as he transmitted Tormenta out
into the Great Choir.
He sung them to death. And when he was done, and Tormenta was taking over pretty much every function in his brain? He asked to be
dropped on Polvo so he could die somewhere pretty.
Duffy had been one of them. He’d been too drunk to reply.
So, no, I won’t be celebrating Duffy Day. I won’t raise a glass to his memory. I won’t miss him. He was an incompetent, abusive drunk who was
too much of a coward to do something right until the last possible minute. I’ve had petri dishes I cared more about.
The Silence
DOCTOR VIOLET MALLORY, BLACK SKY INVESTMENTS, ANTHROPOLOGY DIVISION (Interviewed at Black Sky orbital campus, Polvo)
Doctor Violet Mallory is a Black Sky Industries anthropologist. She’s the fourth generation of the Mallory family to work in the field and is
amongst the most decorated field scientists on Black Sky’s payroll. She has logged more field time than any other scientist in her field. We
would like to thank her for reminding us of that.
The Song has caused the entirety of known space to go into culture shock. I mean that in the most literal sense too; this was an intelligent
piece of music that tried to murder free will and very nearly succeeded. Can you imagine a species that isn’t terrified by that? Can you
imagine how DULL they’d be? Can you imagine how lonely the Song is?
Think about it; a single, singular creature. Thrown out across the stars with one mission: to propagate. I know Fleet are talking about it as a
colonization tool andI can see why. The Song is an elegant solution to pretty much every conquest problem there is.
You ever hear about the WOW! Signal. It was a SETI signal picked up in the 1970s. Focused, structured transmission that looked a hell of a
lot like a HELLO! And a cheery wave. The scientist on duty circled it and wrote WOW! Hence the name.
Never repeated.
Which, in a weird way, maybe confirms that it was real. As an aside? The WOW! Signal and The Song, I am told by people who work for
certain agencies and do NOT have the alcohol tolerance they think they do, resemble one another.
Remarkably so.
I wonder about that a lot. Whether it was a Song, or The Song. Whether it was a HELLO! Or a TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER or a HONESTLY
CHAPS, NUCLEAR POWER IS A VERY STUPID IDEA. I think it was none of those things;
I think it was the last shout of a dying species. A WE WERE HERE, transmitted across the stars.
Especially as these days, we’d probably ask to play something rather than punch them in whatever looked squishiest
Don’t get me started on Tormenta. DON’T. We don’t have that kind of time and I’m fairly certain you want children to hear this.
Bollocks to it.
Tormenta is our generation’s war crime. Even before we lobotomised some poor square-jawed idiot as a delivery system for it, it was, without
a doubt, an evil concept in every way. I know it saved us. I know it killed the Song.
Who’s to say the Song is truly dead? Or Tormenta? That dust storm it’s grave is at the centre of was NOT THERE the hour before it was
buried. Did you know that? It doesn’t conform to local weather patterns, it doesn’t move it just … IS.
I think about that a lot too. But you know what really keeps me up at night?
The fact that we’re the conductors now. Whether we want to be or not and I honestly don’t trust any of us enough to keep the orchestra
together.
Terra
Home of the Terrans Earth was the cradle and the crown. Earth was where we started and where we could always return home to. It was home to
countless distinct peoples and cultures. It held all of our treasures, and supported nine billion souls. The planet had its faults, but it offered shelter
to humanity. The world was crowded, dirty, loud, and alive. Massive metropoli were scattered along the globe, filled with every art, craft, and
industry that humanity came up with. Cornfields, rice paddies, wheat fields and soy plantations fed the the billions of hungry terrans who lived their
lives here. Between these cities and worked farmland, were areas of wilderness preserved for future generations. Endless rainforests filled with
buzzing insects and tropical birds in rainbow hues. Deep boreal forests with proud elk chased by wolves. Marshland alive with waterfowl and tiny
amphibians. Even the rocky deserts were filled with a vast diversity of life Mars could only envy. The cities themselves were wonderous hives of
activity, history and culture. Ancient buddhist monasteries and hindu temples brought peace amidst the frenzied activities of the nearby cities. The
great universities of Nairobi, Shenzhen, Sao Paulo, and Mexico City educated the best and brightest minds that Earth had to offer. The thousands
of alien tourists led to a resurgence of the arts and sciences. When The Song came, all it offered was voices to The Choir. Earth fell. Earth rose.
And it was quieter when it did. Less than a quarter of the people who escaped in the Star Lift returned. The colonies on other worlds in the solar
system fared even worse with only Mars standing tall. Entire cities are deserted necropoli which serve as homes to the billions who perished in
SongFall. The centre of human space is a quiet world now. In the wake of the Song and Songfall, every primary city on the world lies vacant and
abandoned. There are survivors, of course. The planet is too untidy, too fractious for even the Song to have wiped it clean. But, for now, those
groups are small. Villages instead of cities. Churches instead of cathedrals. The corporations and offworld groups have done their best and there
is rebuilding underway, but it will be the work of generations before Earth returns to its former glory.
Mars
Home of the Martians The Corporations were the first to settle on Mars. Dozens of entrepreneurs built their own corporate headquarters on the
planet, from Redcap Engineering Services, to Hephaestus Prospecting Incorporate. The planet was originally run by an administrative board of
directors representing each of these corporate interests, but it couldn’t last. After forty years of uneasy peace, corporate rivalries and industrial
espionage led to the first war. Domes were bombed, air scrubbers sabotaged, and squads of marines in Titan power armour fought in the airless
wastelands. When the war finished, the only corporation which remained was MarsCorp. 200 years down the line, Mars was unified along lines of
commerce rather than nationality. MarsCorp, the board members descendants of the original settlers, own the world outright, and lease offices
there to every other major corporation and government body. Those leases were in turn ploughed back into the ongoing terraforming effort as well
as a mandatory wage increase for every staff member, regardless of rank. The end result was something between a kibbutz and a planet-wide
work farm. It was an world but a remarkably happy one. That’s not to say that everyone was happy with the status quo. MarsCorp security had
jurisdiction over every aspect the planet’s operations, and enjoyed complete legal immunity for any indiscretions. The MarsCorp mission to
terraform the planet was the first and only priority for the planet, and no dome dared rebel against corporate edicts. A number of disgruntled
Martian citizens left their world and joined the Belter Resistance due to the misdeeds of MarsCorp leadership. When the Great Choir arrived at
Mars, the Martian Armada Division escorted hundreds of evacuation ships to join with the Exodus Fleet. Their sacrifice and martial skill helped
nearly a million Martian civilians escape the massacre that was to come. The Great Choir claimed MarsCorp governance as their own. Their agents
slowly and inexorably captured dome after dome and shot off the oxygen supply for anyone who dared resist. Martian Marines fought to protect
their homes, but it was a nearly helpless cause. Humanity’s second home has fared a little better than earth, but Mars struggles to rebuild under
the shadow of the song’s atrocities. The remnants of MarsCorp are working extensively with the surviving elements of Black Sky to fortify the world
to ensure that this will never, ever happen again. At least to Mars.
The Belt
Home of the Belters A Belter is whoever, or whatever, you’re pointing at when you say ‘that’s a Belter’. Or at least that’s what they’d claim. The
official line was that belters were the miners and associated businesses that had been pulling gold, platinum, helium-3 and fissile elements from the
asteroid belt for as long as anyone has been out there. Wildcatters, farmsteaders, lone wolves and mavericks. This was, at best, part of the story.
Those people do exist. There’s a community of close to 2 million scattered across the asteroid belt and they have a culture, a government and a
philosophy all of their own. But the belt is a state of mind. The men and women who built and ran the oort line? Belters. The survivors? Belters.
The pilots and crews who risked everything to empty earth out? Belters. Prospectors on every world. Explorers in interstellar space. Adventurers
working MarsCorp gigs until they can get the money for a big score. The marshals who chase them. Belters all. The Song barely touched the Belt,
but the ravages of Tormenta will be felt for generations to come. That memetic countervirus fed on the rebellious spirit of the Belters and burrowed
deep into their minds. It gave the downtrodden fierce anger and violent urges. It gave the powerful and urge to dominate and control. It gave the
desperate a hunger for pain and flesh. The cramped quarters of the belter stations turned to abattoirs, and only a handful of missionary ships
were able to evacuate civilians to rejoin the Exodus Fleet. Unofficially, there are stories of wonders out in the black. Belters who’ve ridden comets
out of the system. An attempt to reassemble part of the planet the belt used to be. There’s a lot of noise made about the Song being a chance for
humanity to rebuild. Despite the horrors they faced during the War, they Belters might be the most ready to rebuild. They are used to restarting
with nothing.
Aliens Among Us
SUBJECT HEADING: Xenobiology Report: Aliens Among Us_ FILED BY: Professor Violet Mallory Hello Kristian, As promised, here’s a draft of
the report. As is the way of such things, and me, this draft is…somewhat honest. Perhaps painfully so. I trust you to remove any character
that’s a little too blunt and give my text the polish I know the Board enjoy. Do put some pictures in there too, they love that. Perhaps captions
too? Big exciting ones! With small words.
I have news for you. Galactic civilization is diverse, bizarre, and shattered. The Song broke us all, one way or another. Hell, we even restarted
the bloody calendar at year 1 Post-Song (PS). Comforting illusions of arbitrary pseudo Gregorian time management aside, there is not a
single species that’s fully healed and that, from an anthropological and psychological point of view, is like being handed a Christmas full of
broken toys and a toolkit._
I’m sorry.
Nicest surprise of this whole trip is that the nightmares aren’t as bad here.This is a very quiet, very busy world. I think, to my tremendous
surprise, I rather like it. Be safe, Vi
They say that a couple settlements over, there a trio of outcast Ursa. They lost one of their family, but couldn’t bear to bring anyone else into
their family or split up. Now they are sullen, grumpy enforcers who are outcast from the rest of their people. They have to be the scariest
thing I have seen since Tormenta.
Imagine Neanderthal man. Now, imagine homo sapiens. Two species, same path. Same world.
Now imagine if, instead of inter-breeding one of those species out of existence, they simple became parallel, complimentary.
Meet the Riven.They used to be one people. They look and sound human for the most part. Slighter build, longer limbs, more agile. Granted, they
look a bit like plucked chickens, but most are polite enough not to make the analogy.
Centuries ago, their homeworld of Eynides was bombed, quite suddenly and efficiently by unknown forces. A straight line of detonations marched
across their world. On one side of it, there was the Rasgado, on the other, the Fundar. All of them were infected with a cruelly-weaponized virus.
The Fundar, received the Alpha strain of the virus. The Rasgado who remained, received the Omega strain. None of them had the whole virus. It
was only when they were together that the virus became complete, and active.
Overnight, their culture changed. Death did not come for their loved ones. Their loved ones became death. Even after two centuries and the best
science the Union had to offer, no cure has been found.
The Rasgado have adapted too well, shouldering the weight of their tragedy with a resigned strength. When you look at the Rasgado, you can see
it in their eyes. That’s what you’ll remember long after you want to, believe me. The Rasgado have such resigned acceptance. Many stay on
Eynides to mourn what they have lost, safely behind the DeadWall.
And then, there’s the Fundar. Same species, same genetic traits. But where the Rasgado have sadness in their eyes, the Fundar have rage. They
mark one side of their body, sometimes with tattoos, sometimes scars, or different clothing. The symbolism is clear; we are the incomplete, the
wounded, the forgotten. They are fiercely honest because they need to be and they will respect that in you. Fleet has formally declared Polvo to
be a Fundar World, meaning that the Rasgado are legally forbidden to visit or settle there.
The Riven Song
The Song offers the Riven the terrible gift of hope. Those infected by the Song find a temporary respite from the bioweapon that divided their kind.
For the first time in centuries, the Rasgado and the Fundar could meet safely without triggering their immediate, mutual destruction. That is how
the Song propagated through Riven societies and doomed billions. The Song didn’t cure the bioweapon, but wielded it instead in more subtle
ways. When the infected Riven tried to act contrary to the will of the Song, they found their bodies wracked with pain and debility. It was only
through compliance and spreading the holy Song that these symptoms would subside. They could comply, or they would die in agony.
There’s an area on this station called RivenTown. They own every building but one side of the street is completely empty. Officially.
Unofficially I see Fundar leaving food and messages in there all the time. They’re slight people, quick and precise. They all use the same
spots. The messages are never opened but the food is always gone the next morning. And last night, someone carved a figure onto the
street. One half is red and scratched and furious. The Riven. Broken together.
They’re a single intelligence, except they’re not, they’re every intelligence who has ever lived from their species. They became a post-organic
species when we were still having meetings about whether or not clean surgical instruments might be a good idea. Now, they exist in a perpetual
state of connectedness, each linked to a single overmind.
Sparkle wankers.
The Illuvia are unbearable. Not in that ‘We bring you love!’ way you’d expect but more in the sort of passive aggressive ‘Oh you DON’T go to the
gym six times a week?’ way that makes you instinctively suck your gut in and look around for a heavy object to brain them with.
Except you can’t. Because they’re clouds of mirrors rotating around a central point of light. And they know it, taking smug pity on the carbon-based
primitives. Sparkle wankers.
The Illuvia are also geniuses, which makes it even worse. Illuvia deep range vessels are … heartbreaking. Picture a constellation you can ride in, a
star that’s tamed. They’ve travelled almost as far as the Permancer and are still going.
Now picture them ‘consoling’ you about still being carbon-based. Yeah. That being said, if you get the chance to Vassal for them, take it. You’ll
have a small cloud of alien mirrors in your brain for six months and you will never, ever forget what you see or how it feels.
The Illuvia’s worlds are pristine, immaculate museums to their old, carbon-based selves. The Song, when it came for them, washed over these
worlds and left them empty and intact. The Illuvia themselves were less lucky. Not that they’d ever admit that.
But while their worlds are empty they are not unguarded. There are life size dummies of the Illuvia’s old forms, arranged in their old houses and
workplaces. And every time you visit, they are in different positions…
I sat and watched the Shining Ones dance last night. They do this for free, every twelve hours. Their foglets twinkle and dance and form the
shapes of their past, the biological prisons they escaped. The dance follows them from fish to sentience to dominance to sublimation. And it
always ends, \always, with a billion shining points of light mixing with the stars. I love the Illuvia. I just also want to slap them. Really hard.
The Mercurio homeworld is a tranquil, empty sea. There are no buildings, no landmasses. It’s an ocean world whose ocean drops 200km, most of
the time. Their quicksilver world shifts constantly. Sometimes the ocean is shallower. Sometimes there are islands. High frequency radio bursts are
fired from the world with no apparent transmitter and no apparent pattern. Theories range from the ocean being the Mercurio themselves to a kind
of cloud drive, backing up their entire culture. No one, the Mercurio in particular, is talking.
Thing is, they don’t know how to turn off their shapechanging gifts. They instinctively adapt to suit their environments and find static forms
increasingly claustrophobic over time. Their culture prizes individualism, adaptation, and diversity above all else. They worship change, not the
result but the process. They’re addicted to being other people, imprinting hard, and when they do it gets messy.
Addiction comes easily to the Mercurio. Addiction to new experiences, new faces, and new ways of living. Addiction to intoxicants of all flavours,
from moonshine to illegal drugs. A desperate longing and searching for something that cannot be named.
The stability and tranquility of the Song’s grip seduced many of them to submit willingly to the Great Choir. Some of the afflicted Mercurio, the
Harmonized, lost themselves completely in the process and joined with the Great Choir. Others rebelled by recording their memories and creating
personal rituals for grounding themselves in their identities. When the Song’s influenced faded, many of their kind found themselves addicted to
that Illuvian drug, Hephaestus, which could temporarily stabilize their forms.
A Doppel charged a hotel room to my account the first night I got here. When I found them, they were mid-shift, half-me, half the cop who they
knew would arrest them. In her own voice, with mine scattered over the top, the Doppel laughed and said: ‘Good luck with the line up.’
The Union
The governing body of interstellar space, the Union sat at a level above individual governments and was intended to combine their experience and
knowledge to create something better for everyone. This took the form of an ethical framework, an over-government that pointedly took no role in
a species’ internal politics. The intention, as expressed by the Permancer word ‘Trandlo’ was to create a safety net.Invisible until needed. Always
there when it was.
This approach worked in two different ways. The first was to an act of enlightened, preemptive self preservation. The newer species of the Union
were viewed as immature, potentially dangerous. If they lashed out, and the Rasgado/Fundar attack and Illuvian Sublimation spoke to that, they
could wipe everyone out. By taking this hands off approach, the Union was intended to not threaten any individual group and only step in when
needed.
The second reason it was designed this was more directly optimistic. The Union was intended to be scalable, an eventual galactic government. It
would need to accommodate, potentially, thousands of civilizations. As it turned out, it would collapse before it even reached double figures.
Structure
The Union was always designed to be two things; adaptable and mobile. Its notional seat is at Anchorpoint but in reality that office was the Union
archive. Centuries of legislation, diplomacy, discussion and knowledge all contained in an infinitely searchable, database managed by an alien,
artificial intelligence. One, like Anchorpoint itself, the Union inherited rather than created. One, like Anchorpoint itself, that bears no signs of its
designers.
Each species elected representatives that would form the Union’s ruling council. They would liaise closely with their own individual leaders but
would have final word on all issues that crossed into multiple species’ space.
This was not always successful, although the Permancer and Ursan Towers remain massively impressive and active. The Riven tower was never
completed and was badly damaged during the creation of the DeadWall. It exists now only as a vast, vertical shantytown, an indicator of the future
the now two species have had torn from their grasp.
The human tower covers the entirety of Seoul and is more refuge than seat of government.
Now, rebuilding is continuing but as yet the ISF is leaderless. Instead, the diplomatic corps have formed their own council and are supervising
reconstruction. There is, as yet, no wider plan and this has led to the ISF Admiralty, those that remain, to take over notional control of their
dwindled resources, along with help from Black Sky.
This new structure is, in many ways, depressingly familiar to the human diplomats trying to work within it. Like early-21st Century Earth, there are
constantly shifting bilateral relationships between individual colonies, groups and governments. The survivors of the War are scattered everywhere
and, while the majority are on Polvo, there are a hundred other worlds whose voices are screaming to be heard and a hundred more than that who
want nothing more to do with galactic culture.
Very early plans are in place for a new Galactic Council but there are no governors. Just diplomats doing the best they can.
‘I didn’t sign up. I volunteered. I did so the moment I was old enough to, and the moment I graduated I asked for offworld duty. Command
school. Xenolinguistics. A term spend learning to fly Ursan ships. Another spent forgetting it. Duty with the Permancer Marshal Corps and a
posting here.
We’re done if we stay in system. Humanity’s wars just expand to fill the available space and I wasn’t sticking around to bleed out on Mars, or
watch myself freeze to death in the belt. We’re children with firecrackers. We’ll get burned. It’s just a matter of when. I won’t be there when it
is. Because we aren’t alone. And they’re better than we could ever hope to be.’
The Fleet
Structure
The Interspecies Survey Fleet, or ISF, is the largest military body in known space. At its height, roughly 40,000 vessels from five worlds were
operational. Crews were multi-species as a matter of course with single species crews retained for sensitive diplomatic missions.
The ISF operated at a level over each species’ individual armed forces. They were configured in such a way that people could graduate from those
services into the ISF, or train to enter them directly. The primary ISF Academy was located at Anchorpoint, with campuses on the homeworlds of
each major species. The Rasgado/Fundar campus was turned into a field hospital following the attack and the Illuvia one functions as a museum
depicting the history of the Illuvia role in the ISF and giving carbon based lifeforms lots of places to sit down.
Mission
The ISF had three primary objectives:
The Black Line Initiative made the first objective overt, as ISF vessels moved out past known space. They released ‘breadcrumbs’ as they went:
automated, self replicating communications satellites that boosted their range and enabled them to stay in constant contact. At its height, the Black
Line Initiative was so widespread you could almost see the boundaries of settled space expand in real time.
The second objective proved more politically complex. The strife between the Rasgado and the Fundar, the Blink War and the occasional incident
of militant Mercurio factions attack their colonies all served to keep ISF vessels alert. Worse still, the Permancer, humans and Cuaternario all
continually pushed at each other’s borders in wars that never went hot but never quite went away. As a result, ISF vessels were often required to
be diplomats, coast guard and on occasion, diplomatic security within the same tour of duty.
The final objective is arguably the most important, and certainly the one which caused the ISF the most work. As well as the usual ferrying of
supplies between worlds, ISF vessels also acted as field hospitals, disaster relief first responders and crisis relief specialists. These missions were
what tested the crews to the limit, as they often took place as a direct consequence of either interspecies tension or a civilian or governmental
vessel being where it shouldn’t be.
The most famous example of this is the Homerton Sargasso incident. An Ursan mining crew had been dispatched to set up automated hydrogen
and plasma extractors in the Lagrange points of a binary star system. One in human space.
When the ship fell into difficulties, the nearest vessels was the ISF Burnham, en route to the outer edges of space. The Burnham found the Ursa
ship badly damaged by an explosion on one of it’s miners. Worse, the explosion had been caused by a solar flare which had also scrambled the
miners’ onboard CPU. The automated ship was designed to manufacture 100 copies of itself and then shut down.
When the Burnham arrived, copy 1200 was almost done. In the week that followed the crew of the Burnham fought off constant attempts to be
‘recycled’ by the Miner swarm, rescued the Ursa crew, shut the swarm down and assisted in setting up the hydrogen and plasma extractors, in
return for them being shared equally between the humans and the Quads. Disaster response, close quarters combat, engineering, diplomacy,
physics and compassion. All in one mission, all at once.
The ISF Fleet excelled at this versatility and, despite frequent challenges, never failed to solve a problem. That would change, as would the Fleet,
forever with SongFall.
The ISF Fleet is now a tenth what it once was. Desperate to regain their previous status, and perhaps, to atone for perceived sins, they’ve entered
into partnerships with Black Sky and MarsCorp to bolster their forces.
Sedna
In the 21st Century, humanity established seed vaults deep in the permafrost of the poles. The plan was to reboot the planet should the seemingly
inevitable climate collapse wipe the planet clean. Sedna is a seed vault for human culture. It’s also our first, and so far last, attempt to replicate The
Alexandria Archive. A solid state quantum computer containing every single scrap of human knowledge, Sedna is intended to be a back up for the
entirety of human culture. Whether or not it succeeded remains to be seen. And someone is still updating the archive...
Seoul Tower
Earth’s first and only arcology was built over and into Seoul. The site of the world government, and later, the Union government, Seoul Tower
house 15 million individuals in sustainable, bio-technological comfort. It was the last place on Earth to fall.
Anchorpoint Station
The original home of the Union, built by the Permancer across generations. Anchorpoint is an accretive location, a beehive 5 miles long of careful
architectural choices mixed with the changing needs of the species aboard it. It’s technically mobile, but remains in the spot the Archive dictated.
That spot is a galactic lagrange point, completely at peace in the centre of vast gravitational forces. There is speculation that this point was
constructed but the level of stellar architecture required is unprecedented even by galactic standards.
The Prismatica
The Prismatica was intended to be the cornerstone of the Union. Like Seoul Tower, it was designed to be a new home for the coalition: a vast,
clear ziggurat standing high above the capital city of Eynides, the Rasgado and Fundar homeworld.
The Deadwall runs eight feet to its right. The building is actually scorched and was damaged by some of the explosions.
The tower was never finished and has become a refuge and city state, for the Rasgado who remain on their homeworld.
Unity
Unity is a Fundar performance artist, one who has clear military experience and deep pockets. That’s the only thing known about them, besides
their work; two entirely disparate elements, welded together and left in open space. A human sailing vessel and a rib cage, an exploded statue of
an Ursan and an elm tree. Impossible halves struggling for a unity they can never get, but unable to stop trying.
Sanctuary Worlds
Polvo
Polvo is a world that has been held by every major species and every major corporation. It is the definition of a Goldilocks planet, just right for
everyone. Unfortunately, Polvo is also not quite good enough for anyone. The weather runs to extremes, the planet is home to some
enthusiastically large apex predators and it sits on the edge of everyone’s primary held space. Polvo is dirt. Good dirt. But dirt nonetheless.
Polvo is the largest human settlement remaining in the galaxy, as the home to roughly nine million Terrans, Belters, and Belters. It’s also home to
about three million other alien citizens, and has been designated as a Fundar sanctuary world.
Lachrymose
Lachrymose is a memory. A world built as a memorial to those who fell to get humanity to where it is, it’s become a living archive and memorial to
those who didn’t live through the war. It’s a quiet, almost garden world that has one of the largest surviving populations, many of whom work for the
Oghma Initiative.
Belter tech and expertise combined with Martian money and human fear to throw a ring of steel and rock around the Solar System. The Oort Line,
also known as the Tombaugh Line, circles the solar system. Had the time and money allowed, the defense system would have circled the solar
system on all three axes. It was a last line of defence, home to a quarter million souls and intended as the jumping off point for the next stage of
human exploration.
The Song made entry into the solar system on one front. The remainder of the Oort Line, remained intact. Some of them were used as temporary
refuges. Others still were converted into lifeboats and left the system at sub-light speed. No one knows where or how much. But the Broken Line is
not as broken as people think.
Long Fall
Long Fall is named for the four colossal plateau that define its northern hemisphere. Each one is over a thousand kilometres wide and the tallest
extends into space.
Long Fall is home to over a million human settlers and was, pre-Song, a junction world for travel to many other locations. It was also one of the first
places refugees fled to, and there are stories of several groups still either picking over the cities or living on the surface far beneath the plateaus.
Robinson Broadsword
Robinson Broadsword is the offworld home of the human fleet. A large, arid world, it’s the location of the Fleet Academy, multiple USF facilities and
humanity’s largest shipyard. It is currently abandoned aside from the various Free Companies picking the shipyards clear although elements of
Fleet are in the process of moving back in.
Sargasso
Sargasso is a world torn in two. A supervolcano eruption ripped it apart a century ago but not quite enough to fully separate the halves of the
world. The end result is a planet that resembles a chessboard built by a madman and one that almost no one wanted to settle.
Black Sky Investments saw something different. A planet that could act as a testbed for multiple technologies, could be mined down to the core and
had no complicated ethical issues attached. As a result, Sargasso Falls is equal parts debris field and laboratory, ships and wrecks of ships
surrounded by pieces of world in. a wild, unpredictable mess of science, chaos and nature.
Black Line One may still be active. The vast majority of the people who know it exists are either dead or unable to do anything about its existence.
And not every BLI vessel was caught by SongFall...
The Human Molecule is a generation ship, a seed vault, an artistic folly and a triumph of human will, often at the same time. Ten asteroids with a
combined volume of 3500 cubic miles, strung together and attached to a fusion power core. Put together in a decade and launched the month
before First Contact, the Human Molecule is making its way out of the Milky Way. 5/5/2019 9:26:35 AM The Song did not reach it, its crew are alive
and they are not speaking to anyone. Although some time ago, Fleet did notice it was heading on what seemed to be an intercept vector with the
Archive.
The Dunold Mines are four satellites, suspended at the edge of space, that harvest Helium 3 from The Eye. They’re also in constant motion, riding
the edge of the storm even as they carve into it.
Barrier’s Rest
Barrier’s Rest is the furthest Permancer colony from their homeworld. It’s a large, verdant world with abundant flora and fauna. It’s also the place
Permancer go when their work is done. Not many Permancer survive to the point where their watch ends (The accepted belief is that Permancer
serve in some form for a century). The price for this rest is that the world is almost entirely cut off from the rest of the galaxy. To the extent that
there is some speculation that Barrier’s Rest was not only missed by the Song but that the residents may be unaware of the Song war altogether.
The less public one is that, buried deep beneath and encoded into the peaceful meadows, pastures and glass spires of the Garden is a complete
backup of every event, personality and historical event the Illuvia have ever experienced.
Ashen Shield
Ashen Shield is a small, cold world that is tidally locked and orbits a much larger one, Blackfall. Blackfall is a gas giant notable for having almost no
reflective capacity. It resembles a hole in space with Ashen Shield perpetually facing it.
This world, a bare 1000 kilometres wide, was home to the Rasgado’s primary hospital. It was their intention to not only cure the assault that’s
separated their gender but also to isolate the virus and trace it to it’s source. This work was not completed before Songfall but the nature of Ashen
Shield is such that, many suspect, it continues now.
Dutiful Reconnaissance
Dutiful Reconnaissance was one of 24 Permancer ships sent out from their home world in what Terran Historians noted as 1973 C.E. The
Permancer, painfully aware of the need to learn more about their universe intended to not only seek out new life and new civilizations, but
understand those civilizations and hopefully assist them in avoiding the same mistake they made during their sentience infancy.
In truth, the Dutiful Reconnaissance and four sister ships were tasked with heading to the Hold Worlds. These were the places that, according to
Permancer history, were full stops in the history of the galaxy. Places where civilisation had stopped, or perhaps, simply rested. The Permancer
kept records as dutifully as they kept watch and the coordinates and names of these five worlds were easily retrieved:
The ship that went to Quaternary Harmony discovered that the asteroid’s molten core had been ‘tuned’ and spun in near perfect 4/4 time, emitting
unusual microwave emissions every 256 rotations around the Ursan sun.
Composed Arrangement seemed like an untouched, gentle, dead world. Until the ship that went there realised the flowers, in their original form,
had played a carefully arranged melody through the changing colours of their petals.
The ship that arrived at Behemoth Tempo found the magnetic field of the gas giant simultaneously feral and precise, exploding into life once every
24 hours. Vibrant hues of blue-green rippled across the atmosphere, fading gently like ripples in a pond.
The ship that arrived at Dust found a moss-covered world, comfortably habitable and oxygen-rich. It was only the Storm that set it apart.
The storm contained no music, no structure and had no reason to exist. Yet it turned, perpetually, in place, self-generating as though it was in the
atmosphere of a gas giant rather than an inhabitable world. There was nothing at its centre, there was no reason for it to exist. Yet exist it did.
The Permancer quietly annexed Dust. They built a scientific outpost there and a military training base. And they never took their eyes off the
Storm.
Pragmatic Sacrifice
A century passed with them alone on Dust. In that time, the Permancer completed their study of the world and discovered nothing else out of the
ordinary. The Storm was the mote in God’s eye, a smudge in an otherwise perfect picture. Their sensors detected nothing. But the storm persisted.
Pragmatic Sacrifice was an expedition lead by Permancer Captain Resilience. She, along with a team of six others, would enter the Storm in
hardened suits, laying a trail of ion dispensers behind them that would ensure they had a corridor out. They would set up camp at the eye of the
storm, stay one month and then return. They would stay in contact the entire time. None of them expected to return. The Expedition made it to the
eye of the storm one week after setting off. Their suits were damaged, they’d all been injured by the relentless dust. And every single one of them
saw the same thing when they finally got clear of the dust clouds. An area of ground carved absolutely flat. And a single word carved into it. It
would be a word the Permancer would have no idea of the significance of for centuries, because it was written in English. The word was CODA.
Necessary Defensiveness
The Dust expedition was the final one to report in. The Permancer now had everything they needed to know the truth; these worlds had all been
altered and one in particular, Dust, seemed to have been designed for a purpose. What that purpose was remained unclear. What was absolutely
certain was that no one should lay claim to Dust. As a result, the Permancer scaled back their own activities on world and formally annexed it. Their
intention was to protect whatever Dust was intended for. The perception of their intention was very different.
A Rasgado medical frigate stormed the barricade. Backed by a now separated Rasgado/Fundar trio of philanthropists, they petitioned the
Permancer for the use of this empty planet as a hospital and possible future world for the ‘new’ species. They were turned down. They tried
anyway.
10,000 Fundar were aboard when the ship dropped out of jump 200,000 feet above the surface of Dust. The jump was intended to sneak past the
blockade. It almost broke the vessel in two. They hauled for high orbit and, here, accounts differ.
Permancer records show the crew demanding to be evacuated and allowed to land or they would ram the nearest Permancer vessel.
Fundar media claims the ship was hit by three kinetic needles from a previously unseen weapons satellite. Either way, no help came and the ship
broke apart. There were 203 survivors. None of them were picked up by the Permancer. The Ursan Search and Rescue teams who did the job
earned undying loyalty from the Fundar and the Permancer earned undying hatred. The storm spun undisturbed, like the eye of a sleeping god.
Dust stayed empty. For a while.
Regardless, the ships were immediately surrounded by Permancer and Ursan vessels, who held them in place. Through intermittent static, the
crews explained that they'd stopped in the system for refuel and repair and had no intention of anything else.
One hour after their arrival, a fast pursuit craft launched from the DeGrasse Tyson. It headed straight for Dust, ignored all hails and wais brought
down in high orbit. With no option, Admiral Kanzawa, aboard the Degrasse Tyson, opened fire.
For 24 hours, the battle group and the Permancer and Ursa went toe to toe. Kanazawa took her big, unwieldy vessels to solar north and used the
magnetic field of the local star to confuse her opponents’ sensors. Marshal Resolute responded by bombing the helisophere of the sun, triggering
localized solar flares that forced the Earth ships out of hiding.
Analyzed later in War College, it was clear the fight embodied the curious combination of rapid, leisurely, brutal and civilized as only space combat
could. 20 humans were lost when the Permancer scored a hit on one of the Kaku’s hangars. 5 more were killed when a Black Sky skiff was
mistaken for a large-scale projectile and shot out of the sky. 25 Permancer were killed when a Naval commando unit blew the bridge of one of the
Permancer ships and seized control. These three engagements were the sum total of hostilities beyond the initial exchange of fire.
The marines negotiated a ceasefire. Repairs were made, channels opened. Kanazawa offered Resolute the one thing the Permancer can’t resist:
honesty.
The group were there because of rumours of what was on Polvo. The Black Sky vessels had insisted on making a run for it. Kanazawa had wanted
to go through proper channels. The Black Sky exec who’d ordered the run, Pyotr Mallory, died with his crew.
In return, Resolute showed Mallory’s successor and Kanazawa the Pragmatic Sacrifice footage and the word carved into Dust.
The Blink War lasted 24 hours. The summit that followed it lasted two months and drew one conclusion: The Precursor civilisation, possibly the
creators of the Alexandria Archive, sculpted the Hold Worlds as messages and perhaps defences against something which none of them had yet to
encounter. The decision they made based on that conclusion would end countless millions of lives. They would go looking for the creators. Instead,
they would find the Song.
**Linguistic Drift ** The Permancer referred to the mossy world as Dust, in reference to the permanent storm that defies scientific explanation.
Black Sky executives officially renamed the world “Polvo” and use it in all of their official documents. It was Martian media which mistranslated
the planet’s name as “Dirt” in their prominent news broadcast as veiled anti-terran insult, and the misnomer stuck. While all the official
documents refer to the world as Polvo, many of the Martian and Terran colonists still refer to it as Dirt in common parlance.
The reasons for their presence ties into The Black Line Initiative. Black Sky, due in part to their resources and in part to stealing what information
they didn’t already have, were brought into the Polvo situation early on. The Blink War, and the people who died during it, were viewed a
necessary sacrifice to get the information. The survivors of Mallory’s team were given hefty bonuses, lifetime positions on Polvo and a polite
reminder of how much trouble they’d be in if they ever talked, or left the planet. Now, Black Sky is the second largest player in the system. They
have a continent to themselves, a passive surveillance system covering the planet and a string of intelligence operatives, moles, and public
outposts and trading agreements that cover the planet. They’ve been successfully rebranded publicly as the backbone of the new frontier. Black
Sky reps are heavily involved in the rebuilding of Anchorpoint’s legislature, Black Sky ships and crews are on every other world helping out where
they can. But the largest concentration is on Polvo. And the Permancer know it.
Black Sky want access to the storm. They want to study Tormenta. They’ve made in roads already but have been victims of their own success.
People have turned and disappeared, crossing the storm to join the nascent intelligence. Once that changes, and its existence goes public, Black
Sky will have to pivot once again. Either as the saviors of Polvo, or as the first line of contact for the first new Song. For now, they and the
Permancer exist in a state of polite cold war. But Pytor Mallory’s armour is on the wall of his office and he practices suiting up every day.
The other alien species mingle with the Free Companies, Black Sky, Peacekeepers, and the remnants of Fleet. The Song brought everyone
together in the worst possible way. Those that are left cling together as much for a memory of that unity as to put it behind them and make
something better. Tormenta waits. Tormenta builds. Tormenta scream to itself and the growing number who’ll listens with hungry hearts.
Polvo’s ecosystem is a roiling soup of possibility. Earth-born rats, cats, dogs, chickens and insects go to war with Ursan Cubedogs, Rasgado
Bulkai, Permancer Anvilar and a thousand native Polvo species. None of them have the upper hand. All of them are being changed by their
opponents and their environment. People live as best they can, whether they salvage fallen warships, or raid neighbouring settlements. Perhaps
they are farming polvan bug meat or run the first of Polvo’s nascent fishing fleet. Everyone who is here escaped. Everyone who is here is finding
something to escape to.
Polvo is a graveyard. Polvo is a petri dish. Polvo is the future, standing on the bones of the past. Polvo is the Coda. And the people of Polvo are
what happens when the music stops.
Why Polvo has no Sentient Life There are two reasons for this. One is in-game, one is not. Let’s do the real world one first, then get back
to the sentient alien music and science fiction shall we? Colonization narratives end badly for everyone, but for the colonized in particular.
The last thing we wanted to do was perpetuate that. Hence, Polvo has no sentient life. The in-game reason is MUCH more fun. Fleet have
strict rules about colonies on worlds with a sentient species. These rules essentially boil down to one word: DON’T. Native sentience is
something Fleet vigorously, and when needed, violently protects. The Permancers wouldn’t have sanctioned colonization of someone else’s
world, even to the Exodus Fleet. Although, if you did want to explore the possibility Polvo’s sentients if they were moved off world, or had
something awful happen to them due to the storm, who are we to judge?
Climate
Polvo has been described as a world designed by committee. The world has a gravity of about 57% of Earth’s, which make it easier for large
organisms to thrive and for flight. Terrans find it uncomfortably light, while the Martian and Belters complain about the crushing gravity of the place.
Martians and Belters struggle to understand what the Terrans refer to as “seasons” in this place. The place seems to have its default settings set
at damp, with what is tactfully referred to as a ‘maritime climate’. The frequent downpours are the only thing keeping the perpetually bone-dry
firebrush scrubland from igniting.
The summer rain storms bring cloying humidity, furious lightning and harsh winds. The air thickens with moisture and the thick mats of polvan moss
release plumes of spores that irritate most human respiratory systems. Most folks learn to keep face masks or cloth bandana on their person in the
warmer months. In the winter season, slushfall is frequent, a mixture of snow and water that makes life miserable for all involved. Depending on the
location on the planet, settlements might wind up coated with a thick mat of grey snow, or glisten with a coat of treacherous ice.
In between are the relatively arid seasons where great clouds of ash and coral dust blow across the landscape. Some of the grit in the air comes
from the intermittent fires that sweep along the vast expanses of dessicated polvan moss.
No matter the season, everything on Povlo seems to be coated with a thick layer of grime. The Belters seem to be the only ones who seem to
appreciate the planet for its limitless water and mostly breathable air.
Alien Ecologies
Polvo is an alien world with a unique biosphere. The first humans to land here were fascinated by the flora and fauna native to this world. Beneath
their feet were thick mats of moss, covering millenia of loam and peat. Before them, they saw what appeared to by terran trees whose wooden
trunks were replaced by bone-like coral filled with plant life. All around them were thousands of buzzing insect-analogs which fed off the mosses,
only to be eaten by larger insectoid predators in turn. The scientific field of Xenobiology flourished when the first research papers emerged from
Black Sky Industries. Those early studies painted a picture of a thriving world where vascular plants, and vertebrate animals never evolved. In their
absence, an ecosystem based on moss, algae, and insect-analogues thrived. The alkaline seas were filled with calcium, allowing for stunning coral
reefs for kilometers into the oceans. It was a dynamic but stable set of ecosystems that supported countless species.
The Permancer had strong safeguards against ecological contamination, but Black Sky Industries was far less diligent. Rats, cats, and dogs
escaped into the environment and wreaked ecological havoc. This was only exacerbated when the exodus fleet started landing on the planet, and
the refugees brought even more plants and animals with them. New settlements needed to eat, and seeds from distant homeworlds found root
easily within Dirt. Who knows how the world will adapt to the terrestrial and alien invasive species.
Polvan Species
Unlike on Earth, plant-analogues on Polvo never evolved structures to transport water and nutrients. None of the native growers use cellulose or
lignin for their structural support, instead using calcium as a major building material. This means that the native species of growers tend to have
similarities to mosses, algae, or coral on earth and they depend on heavy rains to give them water.
Polvan Moss is the most common form of terrestrial vegetation. Like the mosses of Earth, this forms a carpet of green, spongy plant material that
is comfortable to walk on. The key difference is that Polvan Moss has almost no competitors and layers have accreted over millennia. If you dig
deep into any patch of moss, you will find meters of compressed peat and dirt. Polvan moss is a component for many agricultural activities, though
it is not enough to support some of the Terran crops.
Firebrush is a larger plant-analog that fills the same ecological niche as bushes on Earth. Like bushes, they are 2-3 feet tall forms of vegetation
which are adapted to fire-dependant environments. They are rounded, spongy things that grow quickly in sunny areas. Unlike terran vegetation,
they use calcium phosphate to form their “branches”. They reproduce by a process of self-immolation as their enzymes transform their branches
into phosphorus which ignites on contact with the air. The pillar of light and heat sends spores high into the air to spread on the wind.
Coral Trees appear from the distance to be sickly birch trees, with purple buds on the branches. On closer inspection, you find that these trees
are more akin to coral with trunks & branches made of calcium carbonate. As the coral tree grows, the colonial organism slowly accumulates more
calcium to extend the reach. When windstorms strike, fragile twigs are often broken and thrown some distances, where they grow into new coral
trees.
Rainbow Tides are masses of phytoplankton-analogs which move through the coastal waters. First misidentified as petrochemical spills, they
appear to be iridescent patches of seawater. Researchers hypothesize that the different hues are intentional, albeit rudimentary, communication
between the different plankton in the mass.
Polvan Flotillas are rare but remarkable assemblages of floating islands. These species produce complex calcium formations with tiny trapped
air-bubbles that allow them to float like pumice stones. These floating corals grow over time, and mature colonies grow to resemble small, floating
islands. The largest of these Polvan Flotillas will get other vegetation growing upon them, and become nesting grounds for certain local wildlife.
Zerges Beetles are ever-present green invertebrates that graze on Polvan Moss. They use tiny chitinous claws to dig into Polvan Moss and carry
it away into fermentation mounds, where the local bacteria transform it into an edible slime that the beetles can consume. In a way, the Zerges
Beetles are a strange mixture of two terran insects; the carpenter ant and the dung beetle.
Hummers are bumble-bee sized blue invertebrates that swarm in Polvan skies. They were named for the high-pitched buzzing noise which their
swarms produce. They appear to be attracted to settlements, although no one is certain whether it's the light, heat, or electronic hum that seduces
them.
Chalk Wasps are a family of dangerous aerial predators, native to Polvo which fill an ecological niche similar to terran diving birds. They nest in
the voronoi-like structure of polvan flotillas or coral trees. Their calcite wings hold their arrow-shaped bodies aloft until they find their large prey.
They will hold themselves several dozen meters above their targets, only to plunge down with sufficient velocity to pierce the thickest exoskeletons.
Muck Hoppers are amphibious polvan grazers which are half-way between toads and miniature kangaroos. While they spend most of their time in
wetland or riparian habitat, their strong leaping limbs and low polvan gravity allow them to voyage deep inland for fresh forage. During the heat of
the noon-day sun, they issue their mating calls by rub their legs together in the fashion of crickets.
Bone Eels are small, aquatic animals which feed on the plankton and rainbow tides of the polvan seas. Like all native species, they lack a
backbone and use an exoskeleton to hold themselves together. What sets them apart is that their exoskeletons are made of flexible white cartilage,
which allows them to swim like terran herring or eels. Similar to many small prey fish on earth, they travel in schools and are heavily harvested by
fishers.
Lashers are dog-sized predators who possess a set of four flexible whip-like and claw-tipped tentacles. By day, they hide in burrows under coral
trees. By night, they hunt in packs that can take down large herbivores. They have recently acquired a taste for the introduced livestock and have
been blamed for many traumatized ruminants.
Kappa are large-eyed insectivores who discovered that settlements are safe places to nest in. Colonies often form within the perimeter, and they
spend their evenings snapping up Hummers with their face tentacles. Human colonists are attempting to domesticate them for pest removal and
keep them as pets, much to the Kappa’s confusion.
Muad Wyrms are large burrowers who share a common ancestor with the aquatic Bone Eels. They dig through the compacted peat subsoil and
leave oxygenated loam in their wake. The subsequent tunnel collapses produce 8-foot wide ditches or ruts which fill with water. These Muad
Wyrms only breach the surface on rare occasions where dozens converge to mate like terran snake mating balls.
Warhog are a cross between a terran warthog and armoured beaver. These huge herbivores have reinforced bone plates at the front of their
head which allow them to knock down coral trees. After chewing off the mossy coating, they haul the fallen calcite “lumber” to form crude fortified
nests for their young. They are known to charge at polvan predators, Ursan researchers, or even small vehicles who threaten their nests.
**Titan Crabs **are terrestrial apex predators with thick exoskeletal armour and eight menacing legs. Essentially bears with exo-skeletons, they run
down their prey with terrifying swiftness considering their size, and use their forelegs to spear their prey. While they have evolved to hunt Lashers
and other similar Polvan animals, they have recently begun gotten a taste to eating a variety of invasive terran and alien pets. There is a wariness
that they may pose significant danger to colonists.
Behemoths are enormous filter-feeders who live in the polvan oceans, filling the same ecological niche as terran whales. Like whales, a large
proportion of their body weight is blubber to insulate them from the icy cold waters of the oceanic depths. By contrast, they are also blessed with
extremely thick armour plates that tend to grow their own polvan coral reefs on their surface. Each Behemoth is a self-contained ecosystem that
migrates across the seas. Recently, martian fishers reported finding the front-half of a killed behemoth floating in the water, but local xenobiologists
cannot fathom any known predator large enough to do that damage….
Ursan Honeyberry is strange bush that was introduced by the Ursa, which produce red-orange berries in clusters of four berries per flower
surrounding a single seed. They are astringent and juniper-like while red and unripe, but turn into sweet berries filled with a substance with the
consistency of honey or maple syrup. The fiercely strong Ursan Mead is the most well-known byproduct of the honeyberry orchards and was a
popular trade good in the galactic union.
Rasgado Charnalvine is a fragrant spiked blue vine that comes from the Rasgado and Fundar homeworld. These vines flower in winter,
sprouting dozens of small black flowers on each vine. These vines are partially photosynthetic and partially fungal in nature, dissolving organic
material in close contact. Charnelvine fills the Deadwall back on the Rasgado and Fundar homeworld. The charnalvine burrows deep into the thick
layer of Polvan Moss on the planet and helps in the decomposition process. This plant was originally transported to the planet because of its value
for textiles, as the spines can be boiled off and the vines flattened into silk-like blue fibre.
Illiavae Lilies are a bizarre type of ornamental flower introduced by the incorporeal Illuvians. These large silvery flowers grow in clusters and float
in the air in defiance of the laws of physics. From a distance, the clusters of metallic lilies appear to be silvery clouds or unidentified flying objects.
This is further confused by the fact that they occasionally release sounds similar to terran wind chimes.
Permancer Bounty is a heavily genetically engineered permancer grain crop that produces both thick fibre useful for paper production, and
ludicrous amounts of nutty grain. This species was intentionally designed to be sown by the permancer colonists on their colony worlds. It regrows
grass-like to a height of 5 feet off the ground, and regrows in 4 months with good weather. It grows incredibly densely and Polvan children have
been known to be able to walk across the surface of grain fields.
Terran Switch Grass is a common and quick-growing plant which was often used on earth for biofuels and on stations for oxygen generation.
This species flourished on the thick peat of Polvo and has formed the foundation of many earth-based food chains that have been imported to this
world. This species has spread across the planet for generations and built a thin layer of cellulose-rich topsoil upon the thick peat foundation.
Terran Soybean is a versatile crop which has been a staple of terrestrial agriculture for thousands of years and was appreciated back on earth
for its ability to enrich the soil with useful nitrogen needed for other crops. Introducing soybean to Polvo has given the world a local source of soy
milk, oil, tofu, protein, and fermented soy sauce. The soybean is ever-present wherever there are large concentrations of terrans who depend on it
for their daily meals.
Martian Rustrice is the genetically-engineered cultivar of long-grained rice which is adapted to grow well under the Martian agricultural domes.
Unlike their ancestral predecessors, Martian Rustrice has black-hued leaves which to absorb the maximum amount of solar radiation. The plant
produces a significantly greater quantity of oxygen than terrestrial varieties, and functions as efficient wastewater treatment as well. The increased
nutrient yield allowed the Martian Rustrice to feed the tens of millions of Martian Citizens before the war.
Belter Brownshoom were an accidental product of a few centuries of belter living in the dark. Food was always scarce in the mining stations and
spun-up rocks of the belt, and someone had the brilliant idea of growing food out of the materials found in these isolated habitats. Unfortunately,
the only raw biomass in sufficient mass that was available for this work was the used algae from the water purification systems, dead air-scrubbing
plants, and human waste. The Belters were able to turn that raw material into a thriving mushroom harvest, with only the minority of it diverted for
recreational purposes.
Invasive Animals
Since the war, many animals have made their way down to the planet’s surface. The exodus fleet had its family pets and stowaways which have
thrived on Polvo. Aliens brought their own companions with them to remind them of home, and these creatures are doing a fine job of destabilizing
the ecosystems.
Belter Rats are extremely adaptable rodents who thrived in the larger stations and outposts of the Belt. As one of the few animals adaptable
enough to live in those harsh conditions, and due to their low resource requirements, they were kept as pets by the well to do. Unlike the Terrans,
folks from the Belt look kindly upon their little companions and brought them intentionally to this world.
Martian Cats were a Marscorp solution to a rodent infestation which had been interfering with the local food supply in the domes. Cats were
commonplace on the red planet and several hundred made their way down to Polvo where they have thrived. Now you can find a dozen purring
cats in nearly every settlement, though the Mercurio seem to avoid them for some reason.
Terran Wrens bring the pleasant birdsong from distant Terra to Polvo. They are also a complete mystery, and no one quite knows how they made
it Dirtside. They were not kept as pets, nor were they introduced intentionally for any kind of settlement purpose. The leading theory is that these
insectivorous song-birds were some kind of stowaways, or were used for Black Sky research of some kind. They are absolutely thriving in the
insect-laden skies of Polvo though and evolutionary drift seems inevitable. It’s also notable that their song is one of the very few forms of music
allowed on the world.
Terran Rabbits were originally brought as pets by a few children on the exodus fleet, and have now gone feral. They have been able to consume
the polvan moss, and their populations are booming. Only the Martian Cats and Ursan Cubedogs are keeping their numbers in check. Some
settlements have begun to hunt the wild rabbits for food, fur, and leather in hard times.
Cubedogs are quadrupedal, omnivorous arboreal creatures kept as pets by the Ursa quads. These creatures are a the size of a gibbon monkey
and are often trained to fetch things for the quad in exchange for some honeyberry treats. When the quad dissolves, the Cubedogs often escape
and packs of them have been found wandering the wilds.
Bulkai are small, lizard-analogues who the Fundar have brought with them to as companions. These little beasts are fond of leaping long
distances to snatch flying insects and are equipped with gliding membranes to safely land at Fundar feet. The Fundar dote on their Bulkai with
gentle love and care.
Anvilar are large, rotund and amphibious herbivores from the Permancer homeworld whose packs wander the coastal wetlands. Those packs
frequently eject juveniles for various reasons, and those young Anvilar wander aimlessly until they are taken in by Permancer caretakers. They
Permancer have cared for outcast Anvilar for millennia, and its shaped their culture in profound ways. Many of them have come with the
Permancer settlers on Polvo and the first wild colony has been established here.
Geography
The Big Picture
Unlike Terra, Polvo only has two major continents.
Comienzo is the largest of the continents where the majority of settlements are found. It looks a great deal like Terran Europe, had that continent
been draped in thick mats of purple moss.
Bigorna, also known as Anvil, is a smaller continent, less than a tenth the size of its rival landmass.
The Free Companies are anywhere the others aren’t. Abandoned ship crews and marines, Black Sky teams who went rogue; scavengers, criminals
and refugees who make their homes wherever their ships can land. The largest group of them are on Comienzo at the base of Mount Urashtu, its
largest peak.
Comenzo and Bigorna are separated by the turbulent waters of the Binary Sea. An accident of geology, aided by an abandoned piece of
Permancer geo-hacking, means the ocean runs absolutely straight, in a 2000 mile wide corridor, between the two continents at their closest point.
This is not an empty sea, but rather filled with nearly 14,000 islands ranging from 10 metres to 100 kilometres across. They’re scattered, like
confetti between the two bigger continents and form a bridge across the Binary sea, albeit a scattered, chaotic one. No one officially settles on
these islands but there are so many it’s a certainty at least some are inhabited.
The rest of the world is a deep and uncharted abyss. A team of Permancer scientists disappeared as they were exploring strange readings on the
seafloor, off the Bigornan coast.
Features of Note
Polvo is filled with a variety of ecosystems, from the sweltering equatorial bone-jungles, to the frozen tundra with patches of ice-moss. Here are
some of the most significant geographic features that newcomers are told about.
Boneyards are everywhere. Fallen ships, some in groups, some alone, dot the landscape and many of them have become the centre of Polvo’s
new settlements. It’s viewed as a mark of tacit approval when a Peacekeeper Marshal station is deployed near one of these. While the human
population view that as a joke, the Permancer do not. A Marshal being deployed to a region is a sincere, compliment and a warning to the younger
races. They act as elder siblings with powers of arrest, ready to help the struggling city through its adolescence.
The Flatlands: These vast plains form the bulk of Comienzo, representing thousands of kilometres of blue-purple mossland. The native
vegetation is slowly being replaced by terran switchgrass that spreads like an infection. It’s also here where many of the strongest settlements
have been established, as the soil is fertile, the wildlife is common and the weather variable enough to keep most folk happy. Independent outposts
from every organization are scattered across the flatlands. There are also shipwrecks, mutineers hiding out, field hospitals, churches, and
abandoned townships.
Mount Urashtu: Once the foothills begin, the land soon becomes nothing but unrelenting granite. The central mountain on Dirt and a vast
monument of rock and granite, Mount Urashtu is so tall that the top quarter kilometre is actually above the atmosphere. A pair of massive maglev
rails run up the side of the mountain which is used to haul cargo to and from the peak. The flat top of the peak is used as a heavy orbital launching
platform and as a space-elevator. Fleet has established a central administrative headquarters known as Highspire at the top of the Mount Urashtu.
There are countless abandoned outposts that ring the mountain’s foot.
The Anillo Chain: Polvo was not always a quiet world. Its Ring of Fire, the volcanic engine of land creation, is now landlocked but wasn’t always
so. The Anillo Chain surrounds the Flatlands and contains over 150 dormant volcanoes, all dwarfed by Mount Urashtu. The chain is owned by
Black Sky Industries, who have dozens of research stations, administrative facilities, and staff compounds scattered throughout. The company has
used the mountains as a geothermal power source and a communications array.
Cicatriz Valley: A colossal equatorial valley which is curiously unpopulated. In truth, the Peacekeepers prevent any settlement in this bountiful
land due to what is buried underneath. Covenant Yard lies at the heard of this valley, where the Hero was buried underneath a terraforming bomb,
a weapon constantly shifting the climate and the environment. The official line is the bomb was detonated to slowly but surely repair Dirt’s climate.
The truth is it’s a lock, and one that’s being picked. From the inside. Anything in the valley risks infection by Tormenta.
The Overlook Hotel: An abandoned outpost overlooking the Cicatriz valley that Tormenta has carved out of the world. It’s remained untouched
despite the Storm’s constant advances. Several groups of Free Company stash materials there, and there are one or two altars to Tormenta. But
you have to look for them and no one stays long.
The Greater Lakes: The vast bodies of water in the Southern reaches of Dirt remained largely free of the war but not of attention. Black Sky
teams heading up there have reported colossal Minero Rat networks and their navigation systems being thrown off by some immense mineral
deposits.
Lake Vidro: Lake Vidro is notable for what it isn’t; a ship graveyard. The largest of the Greater Lakes, Lake Video is a perfect, glassy mill pond
over a hundred kilometers long and 80 kilometers wide. It sits in the middle of the area where most ships fell as the war ended. Not one of them
crashed into the lake. The Equatorial Wastes: A vast and barren wasteland which should be verdant. Despite the lack of nearby mountains and
the proximity to the turbulent seas, the sands are dry. This seems to be the only place on Polvo where the rain refuses to fall, and where local
fauna has been forced to evolve in radical ways. Strange signals, and visions of emerald obelisks continue to lure scavengers and explorers into
the wastes. Those few who return from the wastes have brought back priceless and mysterious Precursor artifacts Anvil: Bigorna, also known as
Anvil, is a smaller continent, is less than a tenth the size of Comienzo. However it’s also equatorially placed and has a more stable climate, which
has made it far more attractive for settlement purposes. MarsCorp has bought the landmass in total and have established their central government
there, under a series of fortified domes.
Key Settlements
Vidro City, the primary township surrounding the lake, has 100 wrecks as its foundation. They regularly launch expeditions into the lake and have
discovered a rich saltwater subterranean ocean at its bottom and countless examples of marine life. But, somehow, not one single wreck.
Cicely: A small town at the base of Shackleton City, Cicely is an artistic community and one of the most socialized (read: safest) places on Dirt. It’s
neutral territory, thanks largely to the town mayors being a Black Sky lawyer on extended sabbatical and a former Fleet communications
specialists. Between them, they know everyone and everyone, by and large, likes them. The fact that everyone is welcome in Cicely of course also
means information flows through the town like meltwater, and that’s the real secret to its success.
Compassion Station: Marshal Compassion works the station at the edge of the Equatorial Wastes. It's a waystation for the scavengers, priests,
and explorers who search that barren land for information about the Precursors. The Marshal has set up an major station with support and a series
of smaller shelters at the 1, 5, and 10 kilometre medians out from it, to help as many as he can.
Shackleton City: The Peacekeepers have the largest settlement on Comienzo. Shackleton City is a polar station, home to 25,000 souls. It’s a
staging post for all operations on world and an off world backup for the Peacekeepers themselves. Its known as the Shining City due to both the
brilliant sea ice and the the large Illuvian population.
St Jude’s: A Church and refuge near the Overlook. This is where Tormenta is teaching itself how to be people. Every week, it projects a little more
of itself into the church, forming homunculi from the thick peat and using them to act out memories of it’s past, of the war, of what it wants. This is
nightmarish to see and no one who has has been allowed to live. Yet.
Rivendale: The Fundar built a great town where the Azuran river and the northern ocean coast meet. The entire settlement is raised a few meters
off the riverbed, with raised coral walkways connecting their concrete towers. In the centre of the complex is a great temple made from the bones of
the ancestors. The temple is the one place on Polvo where the rituals of birth, adulthood, death, and consumption can be performed by the
observant community.
**Lowbrook **is a small town south of Covenant Yards. Locals say that it is “downwind” by about ten miles, which may be a bit confusing to
outsiders, considering that the town is in the middle of a calm grassland dotted with hackberry and cedar trees. The eponymous brook cuts a
swathe through the middle.
In Orbit
Not everyone wants to live planet-side, and there are several stations in orbit around Polvo.
Collins Station:A Black Sky mobile HQ parked in polar orbit, Collins pulls triple duty. It’s the head office for Polvo, an archive of the ongoing work
there, and a Damocles sword for anyone looking to misbehave. Collins is fitted with four, 500m long, ceramic needles. When dropped from orbit,
these will reach temperatures and speeds sufficient to make their impact a functionally clean nuclear explosion. It has not escaped anyone’s notice
Collins is positioned directly above two things: The Permancer Stratellite and Black Sky HQ. Collins is also notable for the Flightline. This bar is
exclusive to Black Sky employees and is situated on the edge of the vacuum seal on Collins’ primary dock. Other notable locations include
Shackleton Gardens, a nano-tech designed garden on the Arboretum level containing plants honouring every fallen Black Sky Employee and the
Archive.
The Fuligin Archive: Located two miles above Collins, the Archive is a very simple ship; it has an FTL engine and the largest memory core in the
system aboard. The core contains the sum total of everything Black Sky have found out in system and the coordinates for the drive are
set...elsewhere. Should Black Sky fall, the Archive will be launched.
Horizon Focus:This massive vessel is the heart of Permancer civilization on Polvo. This floating arcology is parked at the edge of the
atmosphere, held in place by triple redundant anti-gravs, balutes and a magnetic engine. It’s home to over 2000 Permancer people. At the heart of
the Horizon Focus is an artificial habitat full of soil, water, plants, and relics from the Permancer homeworld. It's in this place where births,
marriages and funerals are all carried out, as well as where orphans are reared.
Tortuga Point
The whimsically named Tortuga Point station is the Casablanca of Dirt, parked above the South pole exactly opposite to Collins Station. The Free
Companies hold this free port as their chosen base of operations. It's a sanctuary, a massive hub black market, and a crowded township thrown
thousands of mile straight up. Everyone knows Tortuga Point is there. Everyone knows a pirate fleet is beginning to form there. No one does
anything because everyone needs it, at least for now.
Governance
Law is a strange thing on Polvo. The radically decentralized nature of life on the frontier world in the wake of the War has led to a balkanized
governance structure, with each settlement managing its own affairs.
Union Law, once a robust system of legislative checks and balances, now boils down to a handful of edicts consisting of overarching legal
principles enforced by the weaponry loaded onto Collins Station. * Union Law states that settlements are inviolate, and invasion of settlements will
not be tolerated. * Union Law states that every sentient is a free citizen of the union, entitled to a vote in the settlement in which they live. * Union
Law prohibits a variety of war crimes including the use of chemical, biological, nuclear, or memetic weapons. Violation of this will result in orbital
bombardment.
**Settlement Law **covers the majority of remaining legal responsibilities. The basics of the most settlement law comes down to the following rules:
* No Life can be Taken * No Property can be Taken * No Consent can be Violated * No Debt can be Reneged
Many settlements inevitably establish additional laws beyond the common four, but those are the basics. Alcohol and drug abuse is common
among the inhabitants of Dirt as are, conversely, extreme religious beliefs. The constant threat of both sides to go to the extremes of their behavior
creates a baseline of tension that keeps the settlement security busy constantly. Violent crime is also common, but rarely to the level of murder.
Anyone found guilty of theft is usually imprisoned for a period of time of roughly equal value to what they stole. The exact amount is discretionary.
Steal a biscuit, you’ll get a night in the nearest cell and a square meal. Steal a ship, you’ll do years of hard time and odds are it won’t be on-world.
Murderers and rapists are treated differently. Settlement security forces have the authority to execute both and in many cases, do. Should a death
be ruled as manslaughter, negligent homicide or something similar, they can commute that sentence to a variable amount of hard labour, usually
carried out for the family of their victims. Sexual assault is treated harshly, with either execution or expulsion from Polvo to an off-world penal
colony.
**_Blacksky Regulations _** Black Sky employs private security and their own law in certain cities under their control. In these company towns,
the internal corporate policies and hierarchy act with the force of law.
Peacekeeper Law is a simple operational set of principles followed by the independent Peacekeeper faction. The Peacekeepers make regular
patrols around nearby settlements and outposts to deal with memetic infections. Most outposts have a Peacekeeper district house within eighty
kilometres and many officers have been deployed across the countryside to help prevent outbreaks. Peacekeeper laws are as follow:
The Song’s passage has had a terrible effect on music. While there is no proof that music can harbour the malevolent sentience the Song did,
there’s also not enough proof it DOESN’T. As a result, while music and musicians are not banned, as such, in most places they are roundly
frowned upon. Musical recordings played aloud are rare. Concerts almost non-existent.
There is of course a Black Market for music now and specifically, the performance of music. Choiring is the name the offence has been given. Live
performance especially of vocals en masse, can have a similar effect to stun weapons. There’ll be mass panic, areas will clear and people will be
injured in the attempt to escape, or attack the musicians.
This is the cultural knot the survivors have not yet untied. But several groups have been having fun trying. The Children of Johann are a group of
art pranksters who stage flashmob choirs and perform mass burglaries in the ensuing panic. The Four Fours are a Cuaternario barbershop
quartet who pop up throughout settled space, launching music ‘attacks’. Music is the forefront of teenage rebellion. Conversely, there are other
groups who will fight music in all its forms. The Hushed are an order of doctors who have had their vocal cuts surgically removed so they can never
inadvertently make music and who travel settled space doing the same for musicians. Similarly, the Faith Ships had to adapt their teachings with
music and harmonies replaced by call and response, monotone chants. These have of course caused splintering within each faith.
Jill Shannon woke up on Polvo in the remains of a Great Choir vessel. She’d lost months off her life, could still feel the Song in its absence .
She, she told me later that she had the sensation of waking from a deep and restful sleep. She said, and she smiled as she did so, that it felt
like opening a door to a room in her mind and finding it pleasantly clean and suddenly empty. _ That was when the memories came crashing
down on her in an instant. Everything she’d seen and done as a Chorister, every heartless war crime or thoughtless supplication to the
hivemind. It struck her all at once, like an avalanche of shame and sin._ It took three weeks for the rescue crews to reach her ship. She’d
been drunk for 20 days by then and showed no sign of wanting to get sober. Only a close brush with alcohol poisoning gave her a drive to
survive. She recovered, was given a job and proceeded to climb straight back into the bottle. June was sleeping perhaps an hour a day,
using stims to keep awake and alcohol to keep stable. Both ran out before her money did so she placed bets, lost big, and was back in the
wreck of her ship two months after she was pulled out of it._ Jill has no memory of the three months that followed. She shows up on video
camera footage in multiple townships. There’s evidence a Free Company ship of taking her in for a while although they aren’t talking. Then,
cleaned up but still far from fully conscious, Jill walked into a brothel in one of the primary townships and held the cashiers at gunpoint. She
wore no mask, carried no armour._ She was arrested outside. She didn’t resist. She thanked the Marshal when the cuffs went on._ Jill was
sentenced to 5000 hours community service and banned from carrying a weapon for three years. Her community service was to be done
working for AppleFall Tensate, the Illuvian information broker whose bank she halfheartedly attempted to rob._ Tensate’s first action was to
place their new employee in counselling. Tensate’s second was to reach out across their extensive network and see if anyone associated with
Jill worked for them. Tensate found Marybeth Aston, a fellow survivor. Tensate placed the two women together and rostered their time to
ensure they would always be in one another’s company. It wasn’t the Choir, but Jill Shannon was no longer alone with the voices in her
head._ The 5000 hours was up two months ago. Jill and Marybeth still work for Tensate at the bank. And now, Jill works an extra job as a
counsellor for former Choristers. It’s hard, and always will be, but she hasn’t had a drink or taken drugs in almost a year.
Hard Currency
Terran credits, dollars, pounds, pesos, and euros have all returned to use in the wake of The Song, even if just as a status symbol. These coins
and bills are commonly used by the Ursa (who love quarters), Fundar, and Mercurio.
The Permancer use small pieces of their history, be it a fragment of a ship or a piece of rock from their homeworld, as the raw material for their
coins. They are the only ones who still honour union credits between themselves.
The Illuvia trade in information. Ghost Notes are one-use drives that, when keyed to their new owner-- through DNA, voice pattern, thumb print, or
the Illuvia’s own musical language--will release the information inside them. They’re then rendered useless until the new owner places a secret of
their own inside.
Black Sky Dollars, Black Sky Bucks, are also accepted everywhere. The corporate currency is made of spun carbon nanotubes. Indestructible,
well designed and able to hold 100 pounds of weight when rolled into a tube. It’s also riddled with low impact surveillance technology and everyone
who owns a buck on world is being listened to, but no one knows that quite yet.
That favour economy extends out to visitors too. There’s a saying gaining popularity on Polvo: ‘We won’t pick your pocket, you’ll be giving us your
wallet anyway’ that’s becoming true. No one leaves Polvo empty handed, but no one leaves with everything they came with either.
One of the best examples of this is news anchor Hernando Marquez. One of the leading lights of the surviving journalistic community, Hernando
made his name doing vox pops from the streets, and fields, of Polvo. In doing so, he bought favors from everyone from the Cuaternario mafia to
Black Sky senior investment.
All of them collected on those favours when Hernando’s three months on world came to an end. Which is why, a year after arriving, Hernando
Marquez is 30 episodes into his 50-episode series on the movers and shakers on Polvo. Apparently there are two ways you can tell how big the
favour he’s paying back is; the length of the interview and how fixed the grin on his face is.
As a reminder before you read the example of play, The Peacekeepers are soldiers seeking to obliterate anything tainted by Tormenta or The
Song. No price is too great, in order to keep the memetic infection from resurging.
The Fleet seeks to rebuild the glorious, peaceful utopia which was shattered by the war. They are idealists and hard-workers who are desperate
to restore what the Song had taken from them
Akuech: Can we maybe play brother and sister from different planets?
GM: The origin is really supposed to be a place of birth, and where one grew up. Were they separated at birth?
Akuech: I think it’s more about having a long and enduring relationship than anything else.
Crisus:What if we were in-laws, like I married your brother? We’ve known each other for a long time.
Akuech: And your child is my last link to my family, so I really cherish that.
Crisus: I’d rather not play a mother right now. maybe I maintain your brother’s DNA in a locket with the intention to reproduce in the future. We had
always talked about having a kid, but it never seemed like it was the right time. By the time we started seriously thinking about it, it was too late.
Akuech: Very cool. ere we connected before you met my brother, did I introduced you or something?
Akuech: I was thinking Political – I want to make a kind of political operative who was in a position of power and then lost everything with the war.
Crisus: Cool. Then maybe there was some kind of diplomatic mission to Mars where we met, we hit it off but friendly. Then when I met your
brother, we ended up being super compatible and he was romantic enough to rush off to Mars to marry me.
Akuech: Awesome. And our characters have maintained this constant contact but before coming to the planet, we never really spent time in
physical proximity.
Crisus: That’s cool, like Internet buds that are suddenly sharing an apartment.
Akuech: Yeah, but not in the sitcom type way, but in a way that we can examine what they expected of each other and how the actual
circumstances both heighten their friendship and puts strains on it.
GM: I think we have you two sorted, at least some of the basics. What about you two?
Samera (Saddest): Don’t think my bud’s going to have any family. Definitely going to be a Permancer, one who was dialed into the Human
situation right from the outset of the Song, and they have a really complex name, so the first Human with whom they worked, a dude named
Simonson, called them Saddest. Really fit with the culture and stuff.
Saddest: Saldesdtoricorixiv.
Tanya (Tora): And I’m going to make a Belter. In fact, a Steward. It talks about medical support, so can she be like a doctor or something?
GM: When we get to Professions, you can absolutely give her medical skills. She doesn’t need to be a Steward to get that, though. Stewards are
usually from upper-class families. Is that what you were thinking?
Tora: I hadn’t really thought about that. I definitely want to be a religious teacher from the Belt, someone who takes no shit, and is kind of ornery,
but has this deep need to help people . . . and Aliens! Maybe she’s the black sheep of her family, so even though she comes from a wealthy family,
she’s kind of an outsider?
GM: That sounds really good. Okay, so Akuech is going to be Terran and Political?
Akuech: Yeah, he was a staff secretary at the Commonwealth office in Nairobi, working for a high official, maybe an official that worked on industry
and commerce, and he was in that position when the Song came.
Crisus: So Crisus is a Martian from the Titan Division, meaning she’s got power armour. She’s super gung-ho and when the war came, she had to
go to the frontline – in the sense she desperately wanted to, this was what she’s been training for her whole life. She left behind her husband but
kept that vial of DNA in a titanium container because she had a feeling they wouldn’t be seeing each other ever again.
Saddest: Alien Permancer. I kind of picture them as being a little lost, like their emotional discipline is wavering and its left them really uncertain
about themselves and their purpose.
GM: Okay, now you all need a War Story. This is basically what you did during the War or how it affected you in some way.
Tora: If everyone is cool with it, I’d like to take Tormenta and the Hero.
Tora: Okay, so Tora remembers this guy, Francis Duffy, the abusive, violent drunk who was patient zero for Tormenta. She’ll always remember
that night, years before the Song, when they were in the bar and he was being a bastard as always, and she told him that she’d be happy if
someone drilled into his head and empty out that jerk-brain of his. Except they didn’t empty it. They filled it. She was there. She saw him change.
She will never forget that either.
Saddest: Okay, so I’d like Crescendo and Personal Apocalypse. It’s like Saddest was involved in the Oghma Initiative, helping with the
development of the tech and software to try to save some memory of the victims. They immersed themself in these messages, which finally broke
them emotionally and tied them forever to Humans. That’s when their emotional discipline was really tested and Saddest doesn’t think they got
through totally well.
Crisus: I have an idea for Saddest, so let me know if this works - I was thinking Crisus could have Silence and Rendered Aid as her War Story, and
that she met Saddest during the Permancer meeting and they kind of hit it off. aybe one of the memories they have is of her husband.
Saddest: Oh, yeah, I love it. So, their link to Humans with all these memories in their head kind of gains a bit of a physical symbol in Crisus.
Crisus: All right. I mean, she’s got lots of war stories about fighting and everything, but this is where her life changed and she found meaning after
losing everything else. And she saw these total non-Humans come and offer aid and try to help, and it made her wonder about herself and her
priorities.
Saddest: Yeah, and Saddest uses their connections to get word to Akuech, who was kind of a big deal?
Akuech: That sounds excellent. Akuech was kind of drifting because he’s been on the FSS Endeavour when it got re-routed to Feynman Station.
He stayed with his minister during the fighting, not being a soldier or anything but being loyal and not wanting to abandon her, but the Song
reached her and Akuech had to leave her in the end. He actually had to kill her during the last stand and he barely survived. It kind of shattered
his perception of himself as a civilized person. So for his War Story, I’m going with Overture and Bashton’s Children.
Akuech: Oh, you are. Akuech never wants to face that again.
GM: Now that’s from the Veteran category, so was Tora in the military?
Tora: Maybe? She grew up in a monastery, very regimented, and learned medicine there. When the war came, she felt she had to do something.
Not fight – that’d mean killing and while she’s ornery, she’s not cruel or brutal. So she signed up as a medic. That’s how she got to know the hero,
in the service, and that’s how come she was there during the procedures.
Saddest: And even though they’re not really a leader, not really having that faith in themselves, Saddest is a Diplomat, so I want to go with that.
GM: Being a leader doesn’t mean that Saddest is putting themself out in front, telling people what to do, it means they turn to Saddest when they
need guidance. Saddest isn’t a boss, they are a leader and there’s a difference.
Saddest: Okay, that’s awesome. Yeah, that’ll work. So came to the Humans as a kind of technical liaison on the Oghma Initiative, and their skills
were always more liaison than the technical. That’s how come they were there on Polvo, rendering aid, as a Keeper who’d spent lots of time with
Humans. Then they made that connection with Crisus, and history is history.
Crisus: It’s funny, I was building Crisus to be a soldier, but thinking about her story, I think she’s more a Builder now on Polvo, in this new part of
her life. She’s a Salvager and she uses her Titan armour in that pursuit. She’s really good because she knows military hardware and machinery
from her time in Titan.
Akuech: Profound. No seriously, it is. And it’s kind of how it’s worked out with Akuech too. He’s kind of changing with each piece I add. So now I
want him to be a scholar and a legal expert, and that’s what got him into government, that and overwhelming ambition. But after the Endeavour,
he’s done with that. It’s not about him any longer, it’s about finding something good. And that’s why he’s on Polvo. He’s trying to build something
here, but not physical. He never expected his law degree would mean anything ever again, but arriving on Polvo, finding the people of the
settlements, they needed the structure of law. There were plenty who could enforce order at the end of a gun barrel, but he wanted to see justice
thrive as well. To him, justice is civilization, everything else is just an extension of war.
GM: This is turning out pretty amazing. Okay, now we need to get to Beliefs, and I think we have Akuech’s first belief right there.
Akuech: That anything else is just an extension of war. Stuff that we usually want or expect like order and structure, even chaos, they’re all just
expressions of violence and justice is the only thing that marks a society as civilized.
Akuech: How about “guilt is subjective?” He has a very strong belief that we all know if we are guilty or not, which is subjective, and because the
law is about how people apply it – it’s not a living thing itself – judgements are about opinions and people’s perspective, so they’re subjective too.
There’s no real Platonic idea of guilt, just a perception and an opinion.
Crisus: Maybe the world needed to burn, that’s one I’m going with. Crisus is just getting all nihilistic. Polvo is helping her to see that maybe there is
value in life, but right now she thinks all the conflict, all the power-grabs, maybe the universe needed to be burnt down to get rid of the trash.
Crisus: “Damn the mob.” She doesn’t believe in complete freedom. She believes there needs to be some kind of structure, some kind of
leadership, because when that is removed, the mob turns into something really dangerous.
Saddest: For Saddest: “Peace at any cost.” They don’t care how peace is achieved, only that there is peace. Tyranny is bad, but it’s better than
conflict in which beings die. Oh, and: “Memory is being.” They tried so hard to immerse themselves in memories and wanted to hard to believe that
by saving some memories they were saving some part of the being.
Tora: Tora believes that we need to be free, really free. Oh, maybe “leadership is suggestion?” No, “government is violence.” And “no one is
disposable.” She tried hard in the military to care for those on all sides, whether a being had the Song or not, she cared for everyone. And it
burned her out, making her even more prickly than before.
GM: Cool. I can see some inherent conflict among beliefs and that’s good. Finally, if you want, give your character’s a nickname to help illuminate
their personality or how others see them.
Saddest: Oh, for Saddest, how about Counselor. He’s not an official leader, but people are always coming to him with problems and stuff, so
they’ve started to call him Counsellor, even to his face. He doesn’t really get what they mean, but he thinks the use is meant to be nice, meaning
that he’s accepted, so he loves it.
Akuech: Behind his back, people call Akuech the Big Empty because he sometimes has that thousand-yard stare. And, when he’s in his cups, he
always talks about all the things he’s lost, like nothing that he’s got now has filled that.
Crisus: Crisus’ power armour is called Queen Kong, so a bunch of her co-workers have applied that to her as well.
GM: Oh, for sure. This isn’t necessary, just a way to help define your character.
Saddest: Looking through these choices, I like the idea of a Boneyard, like a massive scrap-pile, junkyard full of tech but also dangers. There’d
always be stuff the characters could find and stuff that threatens the settlement. There could be a lot of stuff hiding there.
Tora: I mean, I think that’s a good idea, but what about a Spaceport? That lets us throw in new characters as new arrivals, people and aliens who
are arriving on Polvo for the first time.
Akuech: Yeah, I think it’d be good for introducing elements that don’t exist already. There’s always a good explanation.
Saddest: That works for me. Let’s have a spaceport. Can one of the industries be Unskilled Labour? That’d give us the chance for lots of
underdog stories.
Crisus: I think that’s a great idea. Maybe also Cargo, so there’s stuff moving through there. Stuff that could cause problems.
Tora: And Air Transport for the trifecta? Gives lots of chances for stuff to be moving through the settlement. Lots of chances for like crazy
characters and crazy items that cause issues.
GM: Fantastic. Now there are some questions that need to be answered. For the first one: your Spaceport suffered an attack during the war. How
has this history changed the port, or the surrounding landscape?
Crisus: I don’t think it’s changed the surroundings because the crater got built over, but many people remember the ship that crashed here.
Saddest: That no one survived, but it was crewed entirely by children. We still don’t know why or where it came from.
Akuech: Wow. That’s brutal. Yeah, and the common ground, the space that we use for referenda and stuff, that’s over the site, so that we always
remember how lucky we are.
Crisus: Maybe the remains that could be found were all buried at the base of the monument at the centre of the common area?
Tora: Yeah. That’s it. The crater’s been physically built over but that monument will always remind us of the children’s ark that marked the town.
GM: Okay, on possibly a more light-hearted note: “weary travellers are a thirsty bunch. Describe the famous bar at the heart of your settlement
and the alien bartender who runs the place.”
Akuech: Oh, I don’t know what the place is called, but the bartender is a robot built from scavenged pieces. It’s got a generation ship’s learning AI,
so it keeps getting more and more like a sentient being. Many of us think of it like a local, like it’s alive.
Tora: Can the robot bartender be called Higgins and the bar is the Robin’s Nest?
GM: Did the AI come from the children’s ark that crashed?
Crisus: I don’t think that’d make a very fun bartender. How about it was built from salvaged AI components? There’s some that don’t exactly work
together well, which makes it kind of eccentric.
GM: We can do that. The final question is: “Your outpost is home to a major criminal enterprise. Describe that organization and the kinds of illegal
activities they specialize in.”
Akuech: Smugglers. It’s got to be smugglers. I mean, we’re at a spaceport and we want some colourful characters arriving and departing, I’m
thinking smugglers fits.
Saddest: Yeah, those are the kind of gangsters I think Saddest would be okay with. Not with like drug dealers or something.
Crisus: And maybe sometimes these guys get into people smuggling, which could create friction with the administration.
GM: All right, so the spaceport is also home to a gang of smugglers. Cool. Now we just need to figure out a couple things with regards to the
nearby settlements. Your neighbours are:
Which of these is on good terms with your community, and how did they help you overcome hardships?
Saddest: I think that the smugglers got out of hand and started abducting folks. For Bligh was kind enough to send security forces.
GM: Very nice. Which other settlement is on bad terms with you? Typically they hurt, insulted, or frightened your community.
Tora: Never trust the farmers. Barleymow has been sending us substandard food for years, and at least two of the people delivering it have been
infected by the Song. We have to be paranoid about every shipment.
GM: It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you. o now we need to make a map, and part of this map is a site for each of the industries in the
settlement – so something each for unskilled labour, cargo, and air transport.
Akuech: For unskilled labour we have a kind of common house, like a flophouse for itinerant labour. It’s always kind of needed so the local
administration manages it.
Tora: And maybe the residents have a roof over their head, but the authorities require some kind of work card or something, something so that
people the authorities consider non-productive can’t stay there.
Crisus: That makes sense. I mean, we’re assuming our characters aren’t necessarily the ones running the government, and so sometimes we’re
at odds with the authorities.
Akuech: Oh, for sure. That way Akuech will have times where he’s providing legal advice to these itinerants who are just trying to survive. He’s got
like a free legal clinic he runs there.
Saddest: Maybe the place is called the Workers’ Residence? If we need to give it a name.
GM: Yes, we do need a name for it, even if it’s just a nickname and there’s no official name.
Saddest: I think Workers’ Residence is the kind of name a government would give to the place, make it seem like helpful even if it’s part of taking
advantage of people in need.
GM: I don’t think so. It changes the kind of challenges your crew will face, that’s all.
Akuech: Okay, I think I’m cool with that. What about the cargo site? Is it a commercial facility?
Tora: Wouldn’t that just be part of the spaceport itself? Like specialized hangers or something?
Saddest: Yeah, but what if the smugglers ran it? Like, we need the cargo terminal to get supplies and stuff, but the smugglers are the ones who
run it, so there’s like a balance that we always have to keep, so they don’t turn on us and shut off our access to the cargo terminal.
Crisus: That sounds great. It makes sense that we’d allow the smugglers to operate even when they’re doing stuff we don’t like because we have
that deal with them. So what’s it called?
Saddest: What about Black Port, kind of like the black market.
Akuech: Yeah, Black Port. Okay, so we just have the air transport.
Crisus: If we’re going anti-authoritarian, let’s build up some authority. Let’s have the spaceport as almost separate from the settlement, like it’s
part of but separate.
Saddest: Like, maybe something like Access Control Point and the name of the settlement.
Akuech: Outreach?
Saddest: Yup.
Akuech: Excellent. So Bastion’s Reach Access Control Point for the air transport location?
Crisus: Can this be one of the big spaceports on Polvo? Kind of explains why it is almost independent from the settlement itself, being that it’s so
important.
GM: Absolutely. But how does the Access Control Point interact with Black Port?
Saddest: Okay, so maybe we’re so important ‘cause we’re the negotiators between the two.
Akuech: Yeah, like we are the mediators, when the spaceport management and the smugglers have an issue, they bring it to us. We’ve got
control over the workers that work at each, so they need us.
Tora: Oh, can this link up with Higgins, our AI bartender? What about if along with being just a bartender, it’s actually tied into the spaceport.
Maybe because bartending usually requires so little of its capacity, sometimes it loans computing power to assist the air traffic control of the
Control Point? And can we just call that thing Control?
Crisus: And I like the idea that Higgins assists Control, it give us leverage over the spaceport management.
GM: That can make Higgins one of the three side characters we need, one for each location. But before that, we need to map out a few more
things, like where do most people live?
Akuech: How about Workers’ Residence is part of a larger residential neighbourhood? But where most of us have communally built homes, stuff
built out of salvage, the Residence is a pre-fab slapped together by Control to house its workers?
GM: Everyone agreed? Okay, so where do people not go? A specific place most people avoid.
Saddest: See, there’s a spot where we buried the engines of the children’s ark because they were causing people near them to hallucinate, and
nobody knew why.
Crisus: Yeah, they theory was that there was a leak, but the engines were completely bizarre, a tech we never saw before. We buried them on the
outskirts of the settlement, but the settlement grew and ended up surrounding that spot.
Tora: Thruster Ridge we call it, and sometimes people go there to experience visions, but those are generally really bad news, so most people
stay away from it.
GM: Is that good? Great. So, where do the people come together?
Akuech: Yeah, and how about we just call it the Monument. There’s a like a large clearing where we hold our meetings and votes and stuff.
GM: Very cool. So, remember I mentioned creating face characters, and that Higgins would be one of them? There’s a character for each industry
location. We have unskilled labour, cargo, and air transport. Higgins is tied into air traffic control, so is it part of the air transport location?
Crisus: I think we’ll want a representative from both cargo and air transport if we’re the mediators between the two. What if Robin’s Nest was
actually part of the Workers’ Residence? That would put Higgins in with unskilled labour.
GM: A belief.
Akuech: Hey, can we have: “We are more important than them?” Alright, Higgins works like a real bartender – people go to it with problems.
Higgins expends a ton of computing power trying to figure out the correct response to emotional problems, and when that happens, all the
assistance it gives to Control drops. And it doesn’t care, because it has programmed itself to prioritize Bastion’s Reach over Control. It identifies
itself with the labourers that it serves and wants to protect them, which means the smugglers and air transport authorities have to be really careful
about threatening their workers, cause Higgins has been known to hold a grudge.
Tora: That’s awesome. I love it because Tora would be so against that, but she has a real soft spot for our own little vodka-slinging Pinocchio.
GM: So, Higgins is set. What about for the cargo location.
Saddest: Or maybe like his number two? Like a lawyer or advisor or something? Like we don’t see the boss, but this character’s the one we talk
to?
Crisus: What if it is a Belter who is a vassal to an Illuvia? And while we’re dealing with the Belter, we’re actually dealing with the Illuvia most of the
time, as in the Belter’s identity is almost completely subsumed by the Illuvia’s.
Tora: Yeah, so Tora is super-conflicted, because this Belter is basically disappearing, like dying but in a different sense, but it’s consensual.
Akuech: What if he doesn’t have a name? What if he is just the Belter? Or the Advisor?
Crisus: That. The Vassal. And the Illuvia doesn’t deign to share its name with us. The smuggler leadership probably knows, but we aren’t worthy.
Tora: And for belief, maybe something like “commerce is peace,” so that trade creates connections that beings don’t want to risk, and they find
ways other than war to deal with problems.
Crisus: Aura Han. She was a captain of an incredibly successful warship. She and her crew quickly took control of the spaceport when Polvo was
being colonized.
Akuech: Oh, and this was when the settlement was just starting to grow. The smugglers were already there, and Han and her crew wanted to exert
their control over everything, but she was worried going after one would leave her vulnerable to the other.
Tora: Yeah, and with the growth of the settlement and then Higgins’ help with air traffic control, there’s been no chance since. It doesn’t mean she
likes us, just that it’s in her interests right now to play nice.
Settlements
Only the GM knows who each of the settlements are allied with.
Faces
A. Higgins “We are more important than them” Relationship with Tora, its best customer
B. The Vassal “Commerce is Peace” Relationship with Akuech, with whom he does business
C. Aura Han “It’s all mine” Relationship with Saddest, the only diplomat among the Reach.
Example of a Scene
The following scene takes place late in the first or early in the second session of this particular campaign. The players have already had a few
scenes, and the PCs have gathered both strain and insight. Habits and some general information on the locale have been established, as have
some relationships and some NPCs.
GM: It’s night on Polvo. Like so many, it’s dark, it’s dry, and so many of the stars that fill the night sky are simply pieces of debris in the planet’s
orbit. The lights of Bastion’s Reach is leading a group of salvagers home after attempting to work in the nearby Boneyard, known as Warframe
Yard. It’s been a long and exhausting day as the salvagers come within sight of Bastion’s Reach. The crisp evening air has a hint of oil and burnt
metal as the group gets closer. Behind them, rising up to curtain the night sky, is a windstorm. There's lightning coursing through it, and the dust of
the plains will have stirred up to create a stinging banshee cloud and can strip paint when it’s at its worse. The salvagers are hurrying to get to the
Reach before the storm gets to them. Since Crisus works as a salvager, can you provide the Tilt?
Crisus: Sure thing. Crisus is among the salvagers, making sure everyone gets home. They don’t all have a war rig like her, and those that do are
detailed to carry the day’s bounty either in backpacks or pulled in trailers. Crisus is doing a count, worried they might have left someone behind,
when a really bright light comes shining from the sky. The radios crackle to life on the open channel and they get a command from a Peacekeeper
patrol to halt their progress and not approach the settlement. Crisus can hear both the smugglers and Captain Han’s people on the channel asking
questions and expressing confusion. Since Saddest is a Permancer, do you want to deliver the Question?
Akuech: The local patrol indicates that the salvagers are carrying contraband. The patrol commander demands that the salvagers not make
contact with the settlement but await a ground element that is en route. The Questions are “can we protect all our people from the storm,” and “is
one of our salvagers putting the settlement at risk?”
GM: Those are good, but usually we only have one question.
Saddest: Maybe a question about the salvager putting the settlement at risk has more stakes. The storm’s like an implacable force. It doesn’t
have, y’know, morality or anything, it just does its thing.
GM: And we can make it stronger if you like. Remember, this isn’t so much a question in the heads of the PCs, but rather kind of like a writing
prompt or a note in a script. It’s give you all direction and an idea of where the scene is going.
GM: Absolutely. I think that would make it stronger. But that’s a decision for you all rather than me.
Akuech: How about we name the salvager with the contraband, giving this a more personal focus.
Akuech: Sure. Maybe the Question should be: "Why has Yibina, one of our salvagers, put our settlement at risk?"
GM: Do you all agree? Okay, let’s go with that. So who has characters involved?
Tora: You said it’s evening, so after a rough day performing examinations on some refugees the smugglers brought in, she’s at the Robin’s Nest,
commiserating with Higgins. Higgins clues her in to what is happening, and as the medic, she’s concerned about any possible health risks.
Tora: Right now I think she can do more at the Robin’s Next because Higgins is tied into all communications and all sensors. She can probably get
more details than even Captain Han’s people at Control.
Saddest: It’d make sense that once someone tells Saddest what’s happening, they’ll try to figure out what is going on. I guess there’s some kind of
comms shack or something in the Reach?
Saddest: Probably Control. So can we say Saddest gets the notice on his comlink and heads to Control?
Akuech: No, let’s say he’s working with some of the refugee leaders from the crew Tora mentioned. He’s getting them enrolled in the settlement
and finding space for the in the residence. He’ll learn about all this after the fact.
GM: Okay, so we Crisus, Saddest, and Tora are Actors, meaning that these characters are involved in the scene and can impact on it. Akuech is
in Audience mode, so you’ll be running some of the support NPCs, like Higgins and probably Aura Han. You’re also responsible for judging when
other players get Insight.
Crisus: Okay, so Crisus is trying to get clarification from the Peacekeepers at the same time as she’s going through her people, trying to figure out
what is happening, who has what and why.
Tora: I’m going to ask Higgins if it has more information. Tora kind of vaults over the bar to get at his central interface. She doesn’t need to, but it
feels more intimate to her. She needs to touch and have that tactile connection. Also, the others at the bar notice that her voice changes. She’s
gone bedside manner. She developed this serious but soothing voice that she uses when she was treating casualties during the war, and now
when she’s in a stressful situation, it kind of switches on.
Tora: No, and I would actually appreciate it if someone ran Higgins. It’d give the conflict more weight for me.
GM: All right then. Higgins isn’t super similar to Akuech, but I think it’ll help the scene, so have it.
Akuech: Higgins is super smart and multiple sensors, both internal to the settlement and hooked into Control, and it has records on all inhabitants
so it can recognize changes in habit and mood. This is ostensibly so it can be a better bartender, but this AI, cobbled together from so many odd
components and program elements, is gaining awareness. It’s becoming truly sentient, and one of its primary directives, one that it crafted for
itself, is to protect and serve the denizens of the Reach.
GM: Now that’s kind of changing one of the Faces. As long as everyone agrees, that’s okay.
GM: Oh, don’t worry, you didn’t. It just seems like that’s defining a lot about a shared character, so I just want everyone’s input.
Crisus: I think it actually fits pretty well with what we established. I mean, Higgins was supposed to seem almost sentient. Maybe it’s further along
than anyone knows.
Tora: I like where this is going. I like the idea of having a sentient AI that’s actually more human than human.
Akuech: Right, so Higgins senses Tora’s shift and it knows that this means she is under stress. This kind of confuses it, so it does a deeper probe
and this triggers anxiety subroutines. Sorry, I can’t do a good Jonathan Hillerman English accent, but Higgins says to Tora: “The Peacekeepers
have activated their offensive systems and may be targeting the salvage team.”
Akuech: Higgins replies: “That is correct. Our salvage team is under threat.” And it activates the settlement’s air and orbital defence systems.
Saddest: Ah, no – no they don’t. Instead, when Saddest arrives at Control, Captain Han is losing her . . . stuff. Yeah, she’s yelling and her people
are madly working their systems, and she like turns on Saddest and she’s all red and fuming. “Turn off the defences.” And Saddest answers “What
are you talking about? Whose defences? Who’s doing what?”
Tora: Okay, so Tora’s all freaking out, her stress has gone beyond her bedside manner phase into the “oh my god we’re all gonna die” phase.
She puts in her ear-piece and turns on her communicator to let the crew know what Higgins has done. She tells them she’s going to try to get it to
stand down, and she’s glaring at the interface as she says that.
Crisus: So Crisus now has an inkling what’s going on. She’s finished her headcount and . . . what was the NPC’s name?
Saddest: Yibina
Crisus: Right, Crisus realizes Yibina isn’t with them. That’s a concern, but her primary concern is making sure her people don’t get shot. They’re
rooting through all their salvage, trying to figure out what set the Peacekeepers off. I mean, Crisus has worked with them before, and she’s not
huge into getting into a conflict with the Peacekeepers, but this salvage is what helps sustain the settlement. The other salvagers are asking what’s
going on, and some of them are on the comms, so they know. People are getting freaked out, but Crisus isn’t listening to them. She’s the one in
charge, she’s making the decisions, but right now she’s counting on her friends to control the situation. It’s only her problem if that doesn’t happen.
No, wait, Yibina is there. Crisus is going through everyone’s salvage, but she doesn’t realize that Yibina, a new salvager that’s only just joined the
settlement, has kept something hidden. Yibina doesn’t have power armour, but she’s got an older exo-skeleton, and she’s wired something into it
on its interior, so on close inspection one might notice it, but Crisus hasn’t noticed it yet.
Akuech: Can I just say that at this point, it’d be kind of crazy for Akuech not to get involved, so let’s say that he’s in a clean room, a room without
electronic devices where he does mediation and client interviews. He needs a clean room to build trust with new clients, so he doesn’t have his
comms with him.
Saddest: Yeah, and no one’s got the time right now to come calling, so we’ll have a sweet surprise for him if we all survive this.
Tora: Yeah, if we survive. So, Tora is arguing with Higgins. It’s not helping the situation threatening the Peacekeepers. This could spiral out of
control.
Akuech: Higgins is unconvinced. Only a credible deterrent will protect the salvagers. It calculates the Peacekeepers are unlikely to engage in
offensive actions if there is the possibility of kinetic escalation. Their rules of engagement won’t allow it.
Crisus: Unless the contraband is something serious. If it’s the Song or Tormenta, their rules will allow them to remove the threat. Crisus is starting
to get really worried. She’s got Tora on comms but hasn’t heard anything more from the Peacemakers. Our comms are secure and separate from
the channel the Peacekeepers use, right?
Crisus: Yeah, I think that’s how it plays out. So Crisus has her comms on the encrypted settlement frequency so she’s hearing Tora and Higgins.
She’s muted her own mic and is busy trying to figure out what the contraband might be. She’s thinking there’s something they’ve picked up.
Saddest: So right then, Saddest has got Han calmed down. They’ve like explained what’s happening but she wants to pull the plug on Higgins.
Saddest is all like “no, that’s not going to work, you don’t understand the AI.” It’s like Higgins is decentralized but is also wired into everything. You
can’t just cut it out or turn it off. So she’s like demanding a fix and Saddest doesn’t have one. So they’re trying to talk to Tora but also trying to
keep Han from doing anything stupid.
Tora: So I think we’re at an impasse with Higgins. Its belief that the settlement is more important than anyone else is slamming into Tora’s belief
that no one is disposable.
GM: I tend to agree. So let’s get those dice out. What is Tora’s goal?
Tora: She wants Higgins to stand down and to let us just talk to the Peacekeepers. She can’t let Higgins harm the Peacekeepers to protect the
settlement because no one is disposable.
Saddest: Could you have Higgins get Saddest in touch with the Peacekeepers, let him talk us out of this?
Tora: Yeah, that would work. I want Higgins to stand down and get the Peacekeepers talking to Saddest.
GM: Cool. And Higgins wants you to understand that all are not equal, that when someone threatens those close to you, they’re less worthy of
consideration. Higgins is threatening a named NPC, so that’s 3 Theat Dice. There is only minor Tormenta influence, so that’s 2 Vector dice for a
total of 5.
Tora: Okay, so for Tora, I think she’s getting dice for Steward because she’s trying to keep things safe. I’m going to say she gets a die for Veteran
as she’s identifying a threat – Higgins misguided attempt to protect the settlement could start a conflict that threatens the settlement.
GM: I’d go with that. Also, just so you know, you’re going up against Tormenta’s influence.
Tora: Of course, yeah, because it’s violence, so I’ll get a die for Tormenta. Let’s see, can we call this a local dispute?
GM: The Peacekeepers are one of the factions local to the Reach, so yeah, this could be a local dispute.
Tora: Okay, so as a Belter, that’s another die. So I have four dice. I got 5, 4, 1, and 5, so 15.
Tora: I’ll take one Strain to re-roll that 1. Okay, I got a 5 so that’s 19. Whew!
GM: And that victory, that forcing of your will on Higgins causes you another strain. Good news is you persuaded it, so what happens?
Tora: Tora basically gets through to Higgins that the Peacekeepers aren’t our enemies. They don’t want to hurt anyone. They see a threat to this
settlement because of the contraband and they are trying to protect us, just like Higgins is. If Saddest can talk to them, maybe we can diffuse all
this without anyone getting hurt. If Higgins starts shooting, there’s a good chance it will end with some dead settlers, and nobody wants that.
GM: And Higgins’ reaction?
Akuech: Oh, okay, that makes sense to Higgins. It’s still learning about people and doesn’t really understand the Peacekeepers. The only
Permancer it’s been in contact with is Saddest, and Higgins is aware they are atypical of their people. Although they have kind of opposed beliefs,
Higgins like Tora and trusts her, so it listens and tries to open communications with the Peacekeepers.
GM: Much better. So now let’s have a look at Saddest. What are they trying to do?
Saddest: I’ve got to like get them talking. What the heck, people? What’s with the extreme action? Let us know what the problem is and, y’know,
we’ll figure this out. No need for problems.
GM: Do you want in on this, or too much heavy lifting for one scene?
Akuech: Oh no, it’s all good. So, the Peacekeepers are trying to stop contraband from reaching the settlement. Is it like smuggling or something
else?
Crisus: I don’t think the Peacekeepers care too much about smuggling. They’re all about the Song and Tormenta, right?
Crisus: So we’ve got to assume that someone’s been tainted or has something that carries some of the virus. Something.
Akuech: Okay, and when Saddest contacts the Peacekeepers, they’re local, or at least have regular dealings with the Reach, so they know
Saddest, at least sort of. They’re willing to talk. They let Saddest know that the salvagers are sending out a very subtle dissonant signal. It’s so
small, their sensors hadn’t registered it earlier. Someone is trying to bring Tormenta into the Reach.
Saddest: Yeah, no doubt. Okay, so Saddest is like telling their people to just calm down for a bit. Let us handle this. We’ll sort it out and get our
people into the Reach before the storm hits.
Akuech: The Peacekeepers aren’t convinced. Your people didn’t even register the presence of Tormenta, so how are they going to identify and
quarantine it? Nope, this is too serious. Until the Peacekeeper ground element arrives to investigate and quarantine the contraband, the salvagers
can’t have contact with the settlement.
Crisus: That’s crazy. The storm’s bearing down on us and while some of my team have power armour and might be able to ride it out, we’re going
to lose people if we stay out here. Crisus moves her team away from the settlement, away from the abandoned salvage. She wants the
Peacekeepers to identify if Tormenta contagion is with the team or the salvage.
Tora: Yeah and Tora is trying to get Higgins involved in this. She honestly thinks of the AI as a member of the settlement and wants it to feel
included and involved. Higgins can lend all the local sensors to their effort, try to boost their signal and get more clarity.
Akuech: That works, and they’re able to use the added input to gain greater precision. The Peacekeepers say the contagion is with the team, not
the salvage.
Akuech: Or has a piece of tech in which Tormenta is recorded or contained. I mean, that was my idea. Is that possible?
GM: The concept of Tormenta is pretty abstract, but let’s say yes, it can be carried in tech. That’s one of the ways it has lingered.
Crisus: Crisus wants to believe that this is inadvertent, that it’s a mistake rather than a betrayal, so she’s talking it through with the salvagers,
warning them that they may have picked something up, something maybe personal, not for salvage. She doesn’t care about that, it’s not a
problem, but someone’s got Tormenta and the Peacekeepers are adamant about a quarantine.
GM: How do the salvagers respond to the announcement that someone’s got Tormenta?
Crisus: Terror?
Crisus: Yeah, they’re starting to spread out, maybe not consciously, but everyone is definitely concerned. Crisus starts trying to de-escalate the
situation, like saying “whoa, whoa, everyone calm down. This is just someone’s mistake, a totally innocent mistake. Let’s just figure it out and go
home. Let’s get to the Robin’s Nest and laugh this all off, okay?”
Akuech: So the storm is really bearing down and there’s chatter between the Peacekeeper patrol and its command unit. Another aerial patrol is
coming on station and an orbital platform is being tasked for surveillance and possible interdiction if the storm forces the air units out of area.
Akuech: Sorry. Getting into it. Um, so there’s a second Peacekeeper patrol craft coming to help the first one, and their command also has a
satellite or something in orbit that’s going to keep an eye on the situation and can use force if necessary. It really doesn’t sound like the ground
element will arrive before the storm does.
Saddest: This is really bad. Saddest contacts Crisus on their side-channel thing. “We need to isolate, er, quarantine the salvager with the Song.
Can you split up your team? Can we maybe find out who’s got it?”
Crisus: Yeah, sure, we can do that. But then what? What do we do?
Saddest: Can we get a shelter out there? Something to protect them? Maybe even give them someone’s mecha suit? Tormenta can’t come in, for
sure, but I think I can get the Peacekeepers to let the rest in.
Saddest: Okay, Saddest gets to work talking to the Peacekeepers. “We want to help, we’re all onboard with the quarantine, but we’ve got workers
who need shelter from the storm. We won’t let the infected in, but we need to take care of the rest of our people.”
Akuech: The Peacekeepers think that’s a big risk. They would honestly rather risk the lives of all the salvagers than allow Tormenta to access a
settlement, especially one connected to a major spaceport.
Saddest: Dice?
Saddest: I think “Peace at any cost.” They’re going to risk one of the settlers to keep the peace with the Peacekeepers.
GM: Nicely put. The Peacekeepers’ goal is to keep the salvagers away from the settlement. What’s Saddest’s goal?
Saddest: They want a compromise – let us bring in our people not infected. We’ll kind of like sacrifice the infected.
GM: Okay, sure, let’s go to the dice. The Peacekeepers are threatening named NPCs again, for 3 Threat dice. They are also being strategic and
shaping the situation to work to their long-term benefit, which indirectly support the Song’s agenda for another 2 Vector dice. That means they roll
five dice.
Saddest: Alright. Let’s see. Okay, so they’re trying to protect the vulnerable – their salvagers. That’s like both Permancer and Crescendo. Since
Saddest is kind of like a leader, this would be protecting a follower, so a die for Leader. They’re for sure trying to persuade someone, so Diplomat.
Is that cool?
Saddest: I got 1, 4, 3, and 2. 10. Oh wow. Okay, so strain? I mean, I’d need a six.
Tora: Tora is working with Higgins to get better readings and accuracy out of the sensors. She’s using her medical knowledge to help separate
bio-readings, while Higgins is focusing on the mechanical. Tora absolutely refuses to sacrifice one of our own. So can Tora take the strain for
Saddest?
Tora: That’s his plan, sure, but Tora just wants to buy time because she believes in Crisus, she believes Crisus can fix this if only Tora can get her
that time, and Saddest’s plan is a way to do that.
GM: Yeah. It sure is. Take that strain if you want. Roll!
Saddest: I got 4 and 3, so a total of 14. What happens on ties?
GM: On a tie, you get to choose to win or lose the conflict. If you win, the price of victory will be two strain rather than one.
Saddest: Ouch. Oh, wow, not good, but Tora looks worse.
Costly Victory
So what if Saddest’s player didn’t take that extra strain? What happens if they had lost the conflict? In that case, we’d likely have a scene in
which the Peacekeepers rejected the proposal as too risky. They might say the readings are too imprecise, they can’t be certain of weeding
out the infected individual. Then what? Well, the players still have not approached answering the question – “why has Yibina, one of our
salvagers, put our settlement at risk?” – which means that there would be more narrative and likely more conflict. The unwillingness of the
players to accept a loss in these two conflicts increased their strain. Failure in a conflict is not failure in a scene. Sometimes one can
strategically accept failure and still have a successful scene. The scene is about telling the story, and a tragedy can be a very effective story.
GM: Yeah, but success. Saddest achieved their goal, so how does that play out?
Saddest: So, like, there’s a few moments when the Peacekeepers are like “stand-by,” and like Crisus is still trying to get her salvagers separate so
we can scan them, right?
Saddest: Saddest is like totally nervous because Han and all of her people in Control are like staring at them, not really hostile or anything, just a
bit bewildered and maybe a bit of respect, pushing the Peacekeepers to back down and all. Then finally its Peacekeeper command that comes on
and is like “accepted” and everyone lets out a big sigh of relief. This scene will continue until the question is answered. At that time, the players
can close the scene.
GM: As an Audience, how do you judge Tora’s actions in consideration of her beliefs?
Akuech: Oh, I absolutely think she’s confirmed her belief. She forcefully argued for it and even if she had lost, I don’t think there was anything in
the exchange that showed any wavering. Mark a point on your Insight Track.
Akeuch: Okay, I’d say Saddest confirmed their beliefs and deserve some insight as well. With the scene closed, players can spend accumulated
insight or retire characters with too much strain. In this case, Saddest’s player wants a Moment of Discovery with Tora and has the necessary three
insight to spend to make it happen.
Tora: So I want to kind of do a monologue, like how Tora reacts to that. It’s like a reminiscence. Like a flashback of sorts.
Tora: Okay, Tora kind of nods, sips her drink. “You know, it’s funny, all that time getting taught religion, teaching religion, spreading it, and you
don’t really think about it. I mean, you are always thinking about it, but you never really question it. Question yourself. And even when the religion
is telling you we are all in this together, you don’t really believe that. There’s the faithful and then there is everyone else. And you say the words
but they mean nothing.” She kind of pauses and touches one of Higgins’ arm-manipulators. I mean, it’s cold, but in her mind, it’s warm and alive
and Higgins is like her friend and this gives her comfort.
“And then there’s the war, and you want to do something because that’s what’s right, right? And you advance your medical training, and you end
up doing battlefield surgery, and you’re saving some and others are dying, and there’s always so much blood and burning. I don’t know. You can’t
tell the faithful from the others when they’re all lying around, looking alike, suffering alike, and you don’t even know why. I mean, the Song, yeah, I
know, but who cares? Right? I mean, is it worth it? And you’re told yes, this is absolutely worth it. We will all disappear. But who cares? You know?
If this is what we have to do to survive, do we deserve it? We’re all people, we’ve all got hopes and dreams and things we care about. The Song
takes that from you. Tormenta takes that from you. But you know what else? We take that from us. In fighting, we sacrifice everything.”
“So, yeah, I got sick of sacrifice. I got sick of deciding that this person, this sentient is worthy of survival and this isn’t. I got sick of triage, of letting
people die. No more, you know? We don’t have to do that. We can save them all. I mean, maybe I can’t save them all, but I can try. We can try.
Frack triage. Frack sacrificing others. There’s no us and them, there’s just us. How can anyone believe anything different and call themselves
moral?” She like downs her drink in one gulp. She tries a kind of smile, but it’s pretty weaksauce. “Sorry for that. I kind of went off.”
Saddest: Saddest is very touched. They nod slowly. “You remember them? Those you wanted to save but could not?”
Saddest: I believe that memory itself is a kind of life. If you remember them, you have saved them. You have saved them all. At the end of the
Moment of Discovery, the participating characters can remove strain, which is a very good thing for Tora at that moment.
Content note: This adventure deals with child abuse and community trauma. Please be open with your players about this and establish boundaries
with regards to how explicitly you will be showing violence against children and other vulnerable parties. Please refer to the safety tools on pg. XX,
and approach with care.
The Settlement
Lowbrook is a small town south of Covenant Yards. Locals say it is “downwind” by about ten miles, which may be a bit confusing to outsiders,
considering the town is in the middle of a calm grassland dotted with hackberry and cedar trees, sliced through by its eponymous brook.
Before Francis Duffy made his sacrifice to end the War, the brook was just a dry ravine, a small crack leading from Cicatriz Valley, sunk into the
surrounding earth. ince the worsening of the storms at Covenant Yard, the ravine has been consistently flooded. It has its own currents and
catches, and all of its water comes from the storms. The first settlers of Lowbrook initially expressed concern about the dark currents, but as years
passed without any incident, they began to cut irrigation channels, filter the water, and grow crops.
Lowbrook now has about 300 permanent families, with the majority being farmers. Most of the population are Belters or Martians who work the
fields. 10 families are Terrans, and while most of these are also farmers, there is also a tiny but distinct upper class of Terrans and Terran-born
Martians (see “The Families” below). Lowbrook also welcomes migrant workers of any culture or race during the harvest season, and the
population quintuples as down-on-their-luck settlers and drifters set up temporary housing and work the fields for meager pay.
When the PCs arrive to begin the adventure, it is harvest season in Lowbrook. There is an air of industry and urgency, undercut by a sudden
tension as Tormenta’s influence makes itself known. For mechanical purposes, Lowbrook is a Farming Community, with Logging, Ranching, and
Farming as its industries. It produces shimmering cedar planks and massive oxen, the likes of which have never been seen on Terra or Polvo,
likely thanks to the waters that flow down from the storms of Covenant Yards.
The Terran upper class of Lowbrook start at Stage 2 of Tormenta infection, and everyone else starts at Stage 1. As more children disappear, the
Terran upper class advances to Stage 3, and others can advance to Stage 2 as the narrative requires.
The Families
Lowbrook used to be a cheerful town -- at least as cheerful as life can get on Polvo. This year, however, there is a thick tension in the air. The
harvest is good, but the upper class is more distant and angry, and their children are disappearing.
Below are descriptions of the upper class, the farmers, and the migrant workers as groups, along with a couple of NPCs for each. Feel free to use
them as you see fit.
The Kosača Family (KO-sa-cha) are big investors in Redcap Engineering Services, and have reaped the rewards of the Starlift and the Fire Sale
in equal measure. When people think of the “rich folks” of Lowbrook, they think of the Kosača family. The Kosačas own a massive cattle ranch with
plenty of employment available for cowhands and guards. They also keep goats and sheep. All of the animal-tending is done by employees and by
children who parents want to teach a lesson about the “value of hard work”.
Tormenta effects: At Stage 2, the Kosača adults may send more children out to tend to the animals, and holler angrily at them if they do
something wrong. At Stage 3, there would be “accidents” with animals, emotional abuse of employees, withholding of paychecks, and
physically punishing children with switches or crops.
The Coventry Family are nouveau-riche. They got wealthy off of managing the transport division of Lone Star Industries, and their cedar farm is
second to none. They have the flashiest home, the nicest cars (they have_ cars!_) and the best clothes. The Coventries employ legions of
woodsmen, farmers, seamstresses, mechanics, private security -- anyone who can be convinced to make their lives better for the right price.
Tormenta effects: _At Stage 2, the Coventry adults will drop a blithe insult into their conversation once every couple of sentences. They’re
just _better, _and you need to know that. At stage three, they will fire workers for even the tiniest mistake, withhold paychecks, go out of their
way to insult and attack people who they feel outshine them -- and as for their children? See the old Terran movie Mommy Dearest for an
idea.
The Faye Family might not have the biggest bank accounts or the best houses, but they are by far the most connected to the land. Everyone
knows the Fayes -- not just knows of them, _knows _them. They were some of the first people in the Hope settlement, landing when it was still
Doorman’s Rest, and they established the town of Lowbrook. Theirs were the first farms in the area, and they feed most of the nearby settlements.
They also do a great deal of charitable work for newer settlers and hire the largest population of migrant workers every harvest season.
Tormenta effects: At Stage 2, the Faye adults start to withdraw from public life. Paychecks go out late or not at all. At Stage 3, they become
almost agoraphobic, with curtains drawn, doors locked, and children punished soundly for stepping foot outside.
Everyone Else
The rest of the people of Lowbrook are Belters and Martians, mostly those who bled out into the community through the town of Hope. While
Lowbrook is primarily a farming and logging community, most of the citizenry work on someone else’s farm or plant just enough to turn a profit while
feeding themselves. There’s a small but growing population of support occupations as well -- millers, seamstresses, ditch-diggers, plumbers, and
other tradespeople. No one household can rival the Three Families in terms of influence and capital, but as a group Lowbrook could easily
overwhelm them. See “Narrative Hooks” below for more details.
**Amparo Burris **is an irrigation expert, but she will cheerfully brush you off if you call her that. A strapping, perpetually sunburnt middle-aged
Belter woman, she came to Lowbrook a year after the war ended as a migrant laborer and wound up staying. Amparo has intimate knowledge of
every aqueduct, pipeline, and ditch in Lowbrook -- she personally dug and laid most of them. She also knows most of the children and suspicions
may turn to her early on.
**Darrel Avery **is Amparo’s right hand man. He’s learning how to take over her trade in preparation for her retirement, and is the polar opposite of
his boss. Lean, dark-eyed, and perpetually sarcastic, this Martian has a surprising kind streak.
**Felicia Moon **came to Lowbrook with the Fayes after her husband died to the Song. Quiet and sad, this black Martian woman is a midwife, a
nurse practitioner, and a former military medic. She has delivered every single child the Three Families have had, while serving the rest of the
community as best she can. Felicia lives near the town square and is one of the only people in town with a car and reliable electricity.
**Doctor Bennett Bird **runs the local clinic and keeps up a rather one-sided rivalry with Felicia. He insists he’s the only one in town with an M.D. --
but he was also a member of the Great Choir, something he prefers to keep quiet. He is Terran and is currently saving up for a car as a status
symbol and a necessity. The status symbol comes first.
**Percevellion, **aka **Percy, **is the local Permancer peacekeeper liaison. They keep watch over the farms and fields of Lowbrook and note
anything out of the ordinary. Percy fascinates the local children, with their dappled coat and big eyes, but they don’t seem to mind the attention.
Secretly, they are delighted by the curiosity -- most of their family died in the War, and they will never have niblings or grandchildren, so they have
developed a major fondness for the human children that swarm around them. When children start to go missing, Percy will be one of the first to
organize search parties, and potentially an in for PCs to talk to the Three Families and find out what’s going on.
**Elwood and Natalie Stevens **are the current ombudsman and woman for the migrant workers in town. They have something of a nascent union
going, and despite people not always listening to them, they will always speak. Natalie is the firebrand of the pair, while Elwood sees to the safety
and succor of their people. Belters both, they know how hard it is to live without support, and they are trying hard to turn Lowbrook into a place
where people can put down roots and grow.
Maya Coventry is the first to go missing. A precocious fourteen-year-old with a reading level well above her years, most people assume she’s off
on an adventure somewhere -- until she doesn’t come back. If the PCs go into Covenant Yard to look for the children, she will likely be their war
leader. Maya is farther along on the Tormenta infection than the other children.
**Caleb and Francis Faye **are ten-year-old twins. They were rarely seen apart, until other children started disappearing. Caleb disappeared first,
and then Francis was seen running through the center of town before disappearing as well. Usually chatty and in everybody’s business, they
become quiet and withdrawn before disappearing.
**Hana Kosača **was the black sheep of her family. She always thought differently, stopped speaking after the age of five, and showed no interest
in the family business, preferring to sketch or make strange objets d’art out of wire and string and pieces of glass. At sixteen, she is the oldest of
the children to go missing, and is also the one to take care of them. Hana seems curiously unperturbed by either meme, and mostly busies herself
making fires, tents, and art within Covenant Yard.
Cicatriz Valley
The children have followed the brook upwind, to Cicatriz Valley. If the PCs choose to follow them, they better be prepared to deal with the Yard
itself.
Covenant Yard
“Storms” is perhaps too gracious a term for the howling maelstroms whipping over Tormenta Prime’s burial ground. If someone took Jupiter’s Great
Red Spot and compressed it into a space a million times smaller, that might give some idea. Tornadoes battle for space with columns of lightning,
and blinding snow can just as easily give way to tearing storms of dust. Firebrush, polvan moss, coral trees, and a rare type of tree that looks like a
cross between a cedar and a sand oak defiantly cling to life. It is beneath these trees that the children find shelter, in makeshift tents with clumsily-
dug firepits. It is here that Duffy means to train his army. Making settlers and space captains angry is all well and good, but why not have a legion
of soldiers spending their formative years in his domain?
The Annex could politely be called a government base. In reality, it’s barely a village on the southern slopes of the valley, with a dozen houses
packed in a circle behind low walls. Phoebe’s home is on the northern end, with a series of windows overlooking the raging storms below.
Once encountered, she’s suspicious, insisting on talking to the PCs before offering to help. She will want to know where they’re from, who they left
behind, why they’re going to the Yard, and what motivates them. Once she is satisfied, she’ll consult her almanacs and the storms and give the
PCs a safe route. If the PCs choose this method, they can add an extra die to their pool for as long as they are in Covenant Yard.
Uncle Frank
The Hero has been luring children to Covenant Yard by posing as a friendly relative from out of town. He only appears to them when they are
alone and invites them to come see him. Once they’re in Covenant Yard, which he guides them to, he disappears, and the children are left to fend
for themselves.
Duffy has done this before, and he will likely do it again. The Yard changes a child. With so much exposure to both the Song and Tormenta in their
raw forms, an adult would be forever altered. A child in their formative years, whose mind and body are not yet fully formed, would be turned into
something monstrous -- like the horrific chimera the Peacekeepers and Black Sky sometimes have to put down. The Hero lures children here and
then betrays them. That betrayal turns children and communities into monsters that eat themselves.
If the PCs brave Covenant Yard and make a successful rescue attempt, they still have to deal with children exposed to familial abuse and two very
different universal forces clattering around their young brains. The children might try to run away, steal from or attack the PCs, or conversely, cling
to them as though their life depends on it. Their lives might very well be in danger -- the children are all at Stage 2 of both Tormenta and Song
infection, and the conflicting messages are tearing them apart. Even then, if they somehow manage to get the children back to Lowbrook intact,
the families are still at Stage 3 of Tormenta infection. The PCs may wish to get the adults some help before reintroducing the children to a toxic
environment.
Uncle Frank’s Niblings Francis Duffy, the Hero, should only ever appear to the children. The PCs should not get a chance to attack him --
he is wielding god-like levels of power and has a specific focus. If necessary, inflict the PCs with Stage 2 or even 3 of Tormenta infection,
have Duffy speak through the children, but never bring him into direct conflict with the PCs. They would not survive more than a few seconds
at best.
The PCs are migrant workers, and are caught up in the wave of suspicion and terror sweeping Lowbrook after children begin to disappear. It might
be their job to calm the townspeople and send Percy and a search party after the children instead of actually going into Covenant Yard
themselves. This is a good option for groups that would prefer to explore social play and outgroup drama rather than high adventure.
The PCs are citizens of Lowbrook, veterans and farmers who have been there for years. They know the Three Families and everyone else in town
and are pillars of the community. When children go missing, it is deeply personal for them. They might go after new faces, console the family
members, or try to find out what’s going on of their own accord.
The PCs come in after the children are brought back. The parents are still inflicted with Tormenta at Stage Three, and the children just keep
running away -- though likely not back to Covenant Yard. Running Cry Uncle like this should be done carefully, though, as the focus shifts to
trauma and recovery as opposed to solving a mystery with a backdrop of trauma. While you may be able to cure Tormenta infection, the feelings
associated with it remain.
For a darker twist: the PCs are Peacekeepers on a mission to protect Lowbrook from the chimera that have appeared out of Cicatriz Valley. The
chimera are, of course, the children who went missing several weeks ago. Will they tell the citizenry of Lowbrook? How will they handle breaking the
news to the parents?
After the PCs rescue the children, the children refuse to go home. They might run away again, or they might try to cling to the PCs. At this point,
the parents might get suspicious and accuse the PCs of stealing or corrupting their children.
However you decide to run Cry Uncle, remember that the main themes of this scenario are family dysfunction and community. This isn’t about
killing the Hero for what he’s done or murdering the children under his tenuous care (unless you opt for the chimera scenario, above). The children
have been led astray by the Hero, believing he would offer them a better life, away from their parents -- who he infected. The community is being
torn asunder by the loss of the children, and their parents are slowly succumbing to Tormenta’s influence. This adventure is about the health and
well-being of Lowbrook itself, and whatever the characters decide will influence the continued existence of this small community.
As a GM, be mindful of the players at your table. It is entirely likely you will have a player who had a dysfunctional or abusive childhood at your
table, and it is your job to make sure that they are cared for. While you do not have to do all of the emotional labor yourself, you need to lay down
some ground rules for how you address abuse at your table. If this means keeping all abuse offscreen, but present that’s fine. Same if you decide
to show a graphic scene of abuse, so long as the players all consent to it. Do not sensationalize abuse, it’s not sexy or desirable or titillating in any
way and should not be presented as such. Reread the description of Tormenta if necessary; for the infected parents, their children are in the way,
holding them back, stupid and clumsy, etc.
That being said, abusive parents should not be caricatures either. Remember, these are upstanding members of the community, not ugly drunks
who you could spot as abusers from a mile away. The Kosača family are classic old money who keep any and all embarrassments in the family,
including parental dysfunction. The Coventry family cover everything up with more money, more jobs, more flash. The Fayes, who are well-known
and well-liked, retreat into the shadows and court sympathy. This doesn’t mean they’re not abusive under Tormenta’s influence. This doesn’t mean
they weren’t abusive even before Tormenta’s influence! Maybe Tormenta planted that seed, or maybe it just watered abuse that was already
flowering like a weed. Abusers are hard to spot, and that should also be the case in this game.
As a final note: it’s important to make sure that you’re not telling a story where the real abusers were the children all along. While, depending on
the story you tell, the children might be turned into chimera under Francis Duffy’s influence and unleashed on the town, if the PCs rescue them
before that, they should not turn into little demons that the town has to put down. Too often in the real world, abusive parents justify their abuse by
saying their children were actually abusing them by being naughty, clumsy, stupid, shrill, acting out, or any number of other things. While the
parents may say that in the game, it is your job as the GM to make sure that the abused and gaslit children are still the sympathetic parties in all of
this, no matter how troubled they are by being harmed and lied to repeatedly.
Can you save everyone? No, but you can try. Sometimes, getting them to a place where they can saves themselves is worth the journey.
**
Please note that this content is currently being finalized for kickstarter backers. We would welcome information about any text which you find
is unclear, any typos which made it past editing, or other potential areas for improvement. **