Quest Line · Original Adventure · Mothership
One-shot · 3 hours
The crew awakens from cryo aboard the cargo hauler Demeter's Harvest to find the ship's cat refusing food, life support fluctuating, and the ship's scanner detecting one more warm body than should exist. With Captain Reeves still frozen and unreachable, the crew must determine who—or what—is hiding aboard their ship before their air runs out.
Players are crew members aboard a medium-haul cargo vessel transporting grain supplements to the Kepler Station. They've been in cryo for 87 days of a 90-day journey. The ship carries a crew of 5 (including the captain, who remains frozen) plus one ship's cat named Jonesy.
Content warnings: Body horror, paranoia, potential crew death, themes of infection/contamination.
Player count: 3-4 players. If fewer than 4, the captain's cryo pod malfunctioned and cannot be opened—treat her as a potential casualty rather than an NPC.
The automated systems wake the crew 72 hours early. Choose one or combine:
Hook 1 - Standard Protocol: Emergency wakeup protocols engaged. Life support shows anomalous drain. The ship's AI, MOTHER, reports a discrepancy in the biometric census and requests crew investigation before captain revival.
Hook 2 - The Cat Knows: Players wake to find Jonesy yowling outside the cryo bay, fur standing on end. The cat won't eat, won't be comforted, and keeps staring at air vent access points. Life support is failing. Someone needs to investigate before waking the captain.
Hook 3 - Missing Time: Cryo logs show someone accessed the systems 14 days ago. One pod opened and resealed. No log entry explains why. The crew wakes to flashing yellow alerts and Jonesy's body pressed against the captain's cryo pod as if protecting it.
The crew awakens in the cryo bay—a sterile chamber lined with six pods, only five occupied. Condensation drips from overhead pipes. Emergency lighting casts everything in amber. Jonesy sits near the door, pupils dilated, refusing to approach any crew member.
Immediate Problems:
Investigation opportunities:
Checking the manifest and logs (Intelligence check, difficulty 35): The cargo manifest lists 400 metric tons of protein-grain supplement in cryo-hold. Access logs show someone entered cargo hold 3-B fourteen days ago. Entry code matches the captain's override, but she's been frozen for 87 days.
Examining Jonesy (Empathy check, difficulty 40): The cat is terrified but not injured. She keeps looking at the ventilation shaft and won't enter the corridor leading to cargo. Animals sense things humans don't.
Accessing MOTHER (Computers check, difficulty 30): MOTHER's biometric sensors detect six distinct heat signatures: five in cryo bay (crew), one in cargo hold 3-B. The sixth signature's thermal profile is... inconsistent. It appears in different locations every few hours, as if teleporting.
The Discovery: Frost patterns near the cargo hold access hatch form unusual crystalline structures—almost organic in appearance. The temperature fluctuations correspond with the movement of the sixth heat signature.
The crew must enter cargo hold 3-B. The hold is cathedral-sized, filled with rows of refrigerated containers. Frost coats every surface. Their breath mists. Somewhere in the darkness, metal creaks.
The Environment:
Key Choice - The Containers: The crew can access MOTHER's container inventory. One container (3-B-47) shows as "sealed" but its temperature fluctuates wildly. Two options:
1. Open container 3-B-47: Inside, the protein-grain has been partially consumed. Something has been eating it and... growing. Frost formations inside pulse with bioluminescent light. A wet, organic mass clings to the ceiling, roughly human-sized, covered in crystalline growths. When disturbed, it drops.
2. Track the heat signature: Following MOTHER's sensors leads through the container maze. The signature moves when they get close, always staying ahead. Eventually they realize it's herding them toward the environmental controls.
The Encounter:
If they open the container or corner the signature, they meet The Stowaway—a human figure encased in aggressive frost-forming bacteria. The original stowaway (a desperate colonist who snuck aboard at the last port) has been dead for days, but the extremophile organism that infected them is very much alive, using the corpse as a growth medium and heat source.
The Stowaway (if combat occurs):
Skill Checks:
Critical Information: The organism is consuming the protein-grain and producing breathable oxygen as waste. It's actually stabilizing life support, but will eventually freeze the entire ship.
The crew must decide how to handle the organism before it spreads or before they have to wake the captain and explain the situation.
Option 1 - Purge Protocol: Vent cargo hold 3-B to space. This kills the organism, destroys 40% of the cargo (financial loss to the company), but ensures crew safety.
Consequence: Clean solution, but the crew faces discipline for cargo loss. MOTHER requires captain authorization—they must forge it (Computers check, difficulty 55) or wake her early and convince her (Persuasion check, difficulty 50, with penalty if they panicked).
Option 2 - Containment: Seal the organism in 3-B-47, maintain temperature at -40°C, and deliver it to Kepler Station as an undocumented biological specimen.
Consequence: Risky but profitable. Science division pays well for samples. Risk of spread (10% chance per day). Requires constant monitoring for 3 days until arrival. Each player makes daily Body Save (difficulty 40) or gain 1 Stress from sleep deprivation.
Option 3 - Coexistence: The organism produces oxygen and only consumes the grain supplement. Reroute environmental controls to keep it confined but alive, let it consume the "spoiled" containers (which the company would reject anyway).
Consequence: Creative solution. Requires multiple skill checks (Industrial Equipment difficulty 45, Computers difficulty 40, Science difficulty 35) but results in stable life support and minimal cargo loss. The organism slowly dies as food runs out, leaving crystalline remains worth 2,000 credits to researchers.
Wild Card - The Captain Wakes: If the players wake Captain Reeves early (or fail to resolve the situation in time), she emerges disoriented but decisive. She'll support Option 1 (purge) unless players present compelling evidence for alternatives (Persuasion check, difficulty 45 with advantage if they've gathered data on the organism's oxygen production).
Ending Variations:
Captain Maria Reeves Veteran hauler captain, early 50s, by-the-book but fair. Wants to keep her ship clean and her crew alive—in that order. If awakened, she prioritizes crew safety but won't tolerate recklessness with company property.
MOTHER (ship AI) Cheerful, literal-minded, helpful within parameters. Cannot override safety protocols without captain authorization. Knows more than she initially reveals if crew asks specific questions.
Jonesy (ship's cat) Gray tabby, 4 years old, excellent morale officer. More perceptive than any human aboard. Will eventually warm to crew again once threat is contained—her trust is a barometer of success.
The Stowaway (deceased) Daniel Kovac, 28, agricultural worker fleeing debt at the last station. Infected within days of hiding, dead within a week. His personnel chip (if found) tells a sad story of desperation.
Dr. Sarah Chen (contact at Kepler) Research division, appears via comm if crew reports biological sample. Offers payment for specimens but warns about contamination protocols. Represents the "profit from discovery" path.
Survival Bonus: All crew members who survive gain +2 to their next Fear save from experience with biological anomalies.
Financial Rewards:
Story Rewards:
Character Growth: Each player who successfully made a meaningful decision about the organism's fate gains 1 experience milestone. Stress gained during the mission can be reduced by 2 points if Jonesy curls up with them during the final approach to Kepler.
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