Quest Line · Original Adventure · Mothership
One-shot
The crew of Rig 12, a deep-space helium-3 refinery, has gone silent for 34 hours. The players are contracted not to rescue survivors, but to retrieve the facility's financial ledger before the corporation writes off the station as a total loss. What they find is a crew that discovered something in the ice—something that doesn't die easily, and something that makes you bleed from the inside out.
Player Characters: The crew should be salvage operators, security contractors, or corporate troubleshooters with a ship capable of docking with industrial facilities. At least one character should have technical skills for accessing computer systems.
Tone: Industrial horror with body horror elements. The station is claustrophobic, dark, and everything is covered in blood.
Content Warnings: Body horror, graphic violence, gaslighting by corporate employers, themes of worker exploitation.
Duration: 3-4 hours for a complete playthrough.
Choose one approach based on your group:
The Repo Job: Veylan-Murasaki Industrial sends you a priority contract: retrieve the financial ledger from Rig 12 before the insurance window closes in 18 hours. Payment is 40,000 credits, split among the crew. The contract explicitly states you are NOT authorized to perform rescue operations—retrieval only. Any survivors found should be directed to await official recovery teams.
The Distress Call: You intercept a garbled distress signal from Rig 12. Most of it is corrupted, but you make out: "...in the ice... don't let it... bleeding won't stop... STAY AWAY FROM..." The signal cuts to static. Corporate bounty boards show a 40,000 credit standing offer for the station's ledger, no questions asked.
The Inside Contact: Mara Quillen, a crew member's contact, worked on Rig 12. She hasn't responded to messages in two days. Her last message: "We found something. Management wants us to process it. This is wrong." Corporate chatter suggests the station went dark 34 hours ago. Getting her out might mean getting the ledger too.
The players' ship approaches Rig 12, a mushroom-shaped refinery tethered to a small ice asteroid. The station's running lights are on, but no response comes from traffic control. External cameras show frost buildup on the docking collar and several windows are dark.
Docking requires a Pilot check (40%) or the ship takes 1d10 Hull damage from misalignment with the collar. Once sealed, the airlock hisses open to reveal the dock bay.
What They See: Emergency lighting bathes everything in red. The bay is freezing—maybe 2°C—and their breath mists. A cargo loader sits abandoned mid-task, its arms frozen in position. Hoarfrost covers every metal surface. Most unsettling: frozen spray patterns of blood on the walls, leading deeper into the facility. Some patterns suggest someone was running.
What They Find:
Clue: Checking the bay's computer terminal (Computer check 30%) reveals the life support was manually overridden 33 hours ago—someone vented heat to sub-zero temperatures station-wide, then restored minimal function. The command came from the Operations Deck.
The players must choose: crew quarters (find survivors/information) or Operations Deck (find the ledger).
The corridor to crew quarters is a tunnel of frozen hell. Blood is everywhere—on the walls, pooled and frozen on the floor, smeared on doors. Some doors are sealed from the inside. Others hang open.
The Bodies: In the common area, three crew members are slumped in chairs around a table. They're frozen solid, eyes open, blood crusted around their noses, mouths, and ears. One still clutches a wrench. A medical scanner (Medical check 35%) reveals catastrophic internal hemorrhaging—ruptured blood vessels throughout their bodies, as if pressure built up from inside.
The Survivor: Behind a sealed door in Cabin 6, the players hear tapping—someone using a wrench to tap SOS on the bulkhead. Inside is Yuto Brass, engineer, hypothermic but alive. He's barricaded himself in for 30 hours.
What Yuto Knows:
The Choice: Yuto begs to come with them. He knows the security override for Operations. But he's coughing, and there's a trickle of blood from his left nostril. Is he infected? Will they take him?
If They Explore the Lab (Body Horror Warning): The biological sample container is shattered. Inside is a crystalline structure, now melted, with thread-like filaments. Nearby, Chief Science Officer Ren Saltis is dead on the floor, but her blood has pooled around her body and is moving—pseudopods extending and retracting slowly.
Combat Stats for Blood Mass (if players engage):
The Operations Deck is the station's brain—computer terminals, communications array, and the director's office where the ledger is kept. The door is sealed with a security override.
Getting In: Yuto's code works if he's alive and with them. Otherwise, Computer check (50%) or breaking down the door (Body check 45%, noisy).
What Waits Inside: Director Kess Venn is here—sort of. She's alive but transformed. Her body is suspended in the center of the room by threads of her own blood, crystallized into rigid structures connecting her to the walls, floor, and ceiling. More blood circulates through these structures like a circulatory system that has escaped her body. Her eyes track the players.
She speaks, voice wet and bubbling: "I understand now. It's not a parasite. It's evolution. We're just... containers that haven't realized what we're for."
The Ledger is on her desk, a physical data core in a locked case. The case key is on a chain around Venn's neck—in the center of the blood-web.
Possible Endings:
Ending 1 — Burn It All: Players can overload the refinery's reactor core (Computer check 40% or Engineering check 45%). They have 10 minutes to grab the ledger and escape. Venn and the infection are destroyed. They get paid, but Yuto (if alive) dies in the explosion unless they drag him with them.
Ending 2 — Surgical Strike: Players can freeze Operations using emergency cryo-dump vents (Engineering check 50%). The blood crystallizes and shatters. Venn dies instantly. They retrieve the ledger. If Yuto is with them and showing symptoms, he stabilizes—the cold stops the infection. They can deliver him to medical authorities (no extra pay, but their conscience is clean).
Ending 3 — The Sample: A corporate message comes through if players access Venn's terminal: "Sample 447-B extremely valuable. Bonus payment 100,000 credits for live specimen delivery." Players can choose to harvest some of the blood-mass organism, but must contain it. If they fail containment (Engineering check 60% to jury-rig a cryo-container), the infection reaches their ship. One random player begins hemorrhaging during the flight home.
Ending 4 — Mercy: Venn begs them to kill her. "I'm still in here. Please." Players can grant her request and still get the ledger. No extra rewards, but Venn dies human.
Kess Venn — Station Director, early 50s, gray hair in tight bun. Transformed into a blood-web hybrid. Motivation: Believes the organism represents human evolution; wants to spread or study it.
Yuto Brass — Engineer, 30s, scarred hands, nervous laugh. Possibly infected. Motivation: Survival, and preventing anyone else from experiencing what happened here.
Ren Saltis — Chief Science Officer (deceased). Died studying the organism. Her reanimated blood-mass is hostile. Motivation (when alive): Scientific discovery at any cost.
Mara Quillen — (Optional) Player contact. Found dead in crew quarters, frozen. Left a data pad with partial recording: "They knew. Corporate knew something was in that ice. They sent us to get it."
Corporate Handler "Veylan" — Voice-only contact. Cold, professional. Motivation: Retrieve assets, minimize liability. Will absolutely offer bonuses for the organism sample, won't mention risks.
Base Payment: 40,000 credits (split among crew) for ledger retrieval.
Bonus Payment: 100,000 credits for live organism sample (high risk).
Equipment Salvage: Rig 12 has industrial cutting torches (1d10 damage, AP 5), EVA suits, and a medical suite worth 8,000 credits if stripped.
Experience: Surviving should grant significant Stress and experience. Recommended: 1d10 Stress for encountering the blood-mass, 1d5 Stress for witnessing Venn's transformation, +5 XP for mission completion.
Story Reward: If players save Yuto and deliver evidence of corporate negligence, they gain an enemy (Veylan-Murasaki Industrial) but also a contact in labor advocacy networks.
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