Show the threatDescribe what will happen if the crew does nothing.
Hear their responseClarify intent, approach, and the cost of failure.
Resolve what is uncertainCall for the relevant player roll, or roll the acting NPC’s Combat or Instinct.
Change the situationApply harm and consequences. Describe what the crew can act on next.
When a roll fails
Consider lost time, spent supplies, exposure to danger, or a worse position. Make the consequence fit the action and established stakes.
When a threat takes a Wound
Change its behavior: retreat, seek cover, bargain, or try another approach. Use its stat block and the scenario.
Round procedure: PSG pp. 26–28. Threat behavior: UCR p. 2.
Stat checkAn attempted action with a meaningful risk.
SanityUnderstanding something that defies reason.
FearKeeping composure under emotional pressure.
BodyResisting physical danger or bodily intrusion.
When to call for Panic
After a player’s critical failure, witnessing a crewmate’s death, multiple crewmates panicking, a ship critical failure, an unfamiliar horror, or apparent certain death. A player can also request a check.
The player rolls d20 against their character’s current Stress: above it stays calm; equal or lower uses that numbered Panic result. A failed Stat Check or Save adds 1 Stress.
When a character needs a Death Save, roll privately. Reveal it when someone spends a turn checking their vitals.
One pending roll at a time. Keep this page open until revealed.
Checks, saves & criticals / 18–19
Roll only when failure matters. Under the target succeeds; equality fails. Doubles are critical: 00 always critically succeeds, 99 always critically fails. A failed check or save gives 1 Stress; a critical failure also calls for Panic. [+] / [−] means roll twice and take the best / worst outcome. Both cancel.
Run a violent encounter / 26–28
Each round is about 10 seconds. Describe the threat and stakes → hear everyone’s response → resolve checks and saves → resolve damage and wounds → describe the changed situation. Usually move Close and do one thing; spend the whole round running to reach Long range. Attacks use Combat, then weapon damage on success.
Damage, armor & wounds / 28–29
Apply Damage Reduction first. Damage below AP is stopped. Damage equal to or above AP destroys armor; apply the remainder. Anti-Armor ignores and destroys armor, but not DR. At zero Health, take a Wound, roll its injury type, refill Health, then apply overflow. At Maximum Wounds, make a Death Save. Wounds & Death tables ↗
Stress & recovery / 20–21
Minimum Stress starts at 2. Stress caps at 20; excess reduces the relevant Stat or Save. Rest somewhere safe and roll your lowest Save: success removes Stress equal to the ones digit, stopping at Minimum Stress; failure adds 1 Stress. Shore Leave can turn Stress into improved Saves (p. 39).
Class trauma responses / 4–5
Marine Panic prompts Fear Saves from nearby friendly players. Android presence gives nearby friendly players [−] on Fear Saves. A Scientist’s failed Sanity Save adds 1 Stress to nearby friendly players. A Teamster can use [+] on one Panic Check per session.
Surprise & turn order / 26
When ambushed or shocked, a Fear Save decides who can react this round. If your table wants strict initiative, use the optional Speed Check: successes act before enemies, failures after.
Section/page numbers refer to first edition v1.2. Full table effects stay in the official references.
ANOTHER BUG HUNT / SESSION 03 / WARDEN ONLY
The Court. The storm. The way out.
A guided three-hour plan with clear objectives and room for the crew to change the ending.
PLANNED PREP · NO PLAY OUTCOME RECORDED
Session starting situation & default approach
YOU ARE HERE
Inside the Court with Franco, unconscious Edem, and two badly wounded PCs. The APC is outside. Jensen is with Hinton; three Nobles sleep above a few dozen carcs. The reactor is effectively lost; the Tower was skipped.
YOUR DEFAULT OFFER
Talk first. Give the crew a visible way to recover Jensen or interfere with the merger, then leave. At the APC, point clearly toward communications and evacuation. Accept withdrawal, alternate plans, and partial victories.
Table minutes are a flexible budget, not a countdown in the fiction. Reserve the last 45 minutes for the ship and ending; record fictional travel separately. Selecting a scene does not advance events.
SUGGESTED TABLE PROCEDURE
The Court
Choose one achievable objective, act on it, and get out.
SUGGESTED DESCRIPTION
Your lights fade into ground fog. Three immense wrapped shapes rest above the stairs; smaller carcs crawl across them without waking them. Attendants face you with their claws low. Hinton looks up from human instruments joined to living tissue. “Franco. You survived.” Franco’s grip tightens on his rifle.
0–10 min: recap only what the crew knows. Locate the wounded PCs, unconscious Edem, Franco, Jensen, the surgery, and the route they entered through. Ask who is carrying Edem. Make the exit visible.
10–20 min: use the Court dialogue guide for the questions they actually ask. Hinton answers plainly. He admits killing Glockner and sabotaging the reactor; explains the Shriek becoming a Signal; describes merging with the hive. Bring up the Nobles’ onboard interstellar communication devices: Jensen can warn that they could wake the carcinid fleet. If the crew says they must prevent the call, Hinton calmly answers, “I sent it five days ago.” Pause. The message takes about a decade to reach them; that is not a fleet-arrival date. Deliver answers when asked; no lore checks.
20–30 min: Franco raises his rifle. Hinton addresses him by name. Pause for player intervention. Jensen looks between the crew and the apparatus: offer a chance to speak to them, without deciding their allegiance for them.
30–45 min: ask for an objective and a plan. Rescue Jensen, disrupt the merger, target Hinton, or leave are all legible options. Identify what is exposed and what the retinue protects. Before an attack, state who can retaliate and how far the escape route is.
If a Noble wakes: describe a tremor, every carc freezing, then movement at an impossible scale. Call the appropriate horror reaction using your rules. Ask what they do; offer the opening created by distracted guards. This is an escape problem before it is a combat problem.
ASK THE CREW
“You can talk, try to get Jensen out, interfere with the surgery, or withdraw. Which matters most, and who handles the exit?”
If the players stall
Have Jensen ask, “Are you here to take me out?” This offers a concrete objective. Hinton can answer a practical question about leaving; he does not demand that they stay for the reveal.
If it resolves quickly
Honor an immediate departure or decisive attack. Spend any useful extra time on the consequences: do they take Jensen, recover evidence, or protect Franco? Do not make Hinton survive a successful attack just to preserve dialogue.
If you are running late
Answer remaining questions directly, then frame one decision. Resolve their chosen intervention and cut to the escape. Keep the outcome they earned.
Move on when: They commit to leaving, or their limited objective resolves. Record Hinton, Jensen, and the Nobles separately.
1 of 6
Original Warden prep. The module has Jensen assisting Hinton; their motive, the equipment details, and these lines are proposed staging. Keep anything already established in play.
WARDEN REMINDER · INTERSTELLAR DISTRESS CALL
Fleet call: Hinton sent it five days ago
The carcinid Nobles have interstellar communication devices aboard this ship. They can send a distress call to their greater race and wake the carcinid fleet. Hinton has already used that capability. Five days ago is the timing for this campaign; the module establishes that the call is already sent and takes about a decade to reach them.
Bring it into the conversation
Suggested Jensen prompt: “The Nobles have interstellar communications aboard this ship. They could send a distress call—wake the rest of the fleet.”
Likely crew concern: “We need to make sure that does not happen.” Let the players voice their own response; if they ask how to prevent it, Hinton answers.
HINTON · PAUSE AFTER THIS
“I sent it five days ago.”
Have Hinton say it matter-of-factly, then pause. If nobody asks about the devices, Jensen can raise the concern while they discuss shutting down the Tower. This offers the reveal without forcing the players to investigate a new room or pass a lore check.
What the crew can still change
If asked when help arrives: “The message will take about ten years to reach them. When they receive it, they will respond.” That is the message’s travel time, not a promised fleet-arrival date or an attack tonight.
Destroying the onboard transmitter, killing Hinton, or silencing the Tower cannot recall the departed message. They can still stop further transmissions if they secure the actual device, prevent the merger, rescue people, preserve evidence, and address a later physical messenger. The Tower’s local infectious Signal, this interstellar call, and a messenger vessel are three separate threats.
Let the room breathe
SUGGESTED DESCRIPTION
Your lights disappear into ground fog. Three stairways climb toward shapes so large that you first mistake their wrapped bodies for the architecture. Small carcs cross those bodies without waking them. The nearest attendants turn together. Their claws remain low. Ahead, someone has laid human surgical tools against a surface that pulses.
When the audience forms
SUGGESTED DESCRIPTION
The attendants leave a passage between you and Hinton, then settle along its edges. You can still see where you entered. Hinton looks up with an instrument held perfectly still. Jensen sets down a tray. Neither reaches for a weapon. Franco recognizes the face before Hinton speaks: “Franco. Tell your companions what you need from me.”
At the operating station
SUGGESTED DESCRIPTION
Suggested apparatus: a human monitor, a tray of adapters, and a cable assembly joined to wet tissue beneath the Noble’s wrapping. Each adjustment makes the monitor’s rhythm settle. Jensen watches that rhythm more often than the guards. Hinton works with patient precision even while answering you. Name one visible connector they can investigate; decide its function before anyone touches it.
If a Noble starts to wake
SUGGESTED DESCRIPTION
A tremor reaches your boots. Every small carc stops. The wrapping over the central shape rises, stretches, and drags against the stair. Hinton’s hand remains on the instrument; Jensen steps away from the tray. For a moment no one is watching your weapons. Tell the crew what the changed sightlines actually permit, then ask what they do.
Use their actual entrance. Do not move the PCs to the bottom of a staircase if they arrived beside Hinton. Show the route back, the people needing help, and the nearest guard before asking for action.
START WITH ONE DECISION
“Hinton is willing to speak. Jensen can hear you. Who talks, and who stays responsible for getting the wounded out?”
Default motives, manner, and actions
Hinton
Wants uninterrupted work and eventual control. He treats the injured crew as a logistical inconvenience and answers without remorse. His authority is a reason to stay calm.
“You can leave. You cannot ask me to become less than I am about to be.”
What they do: Keeps working while questions remain harmless. Looks directly at whoever offers useful expertise. If threatened, puts down the instrument and has attendants hold their positions; if attacked, use his real capabilities and the retinue. He has no scripted immunity.
Jensen
Suggested default: assists because they believe a careless interruption will wake the Noble. They are exhausted and frightened, want a way out, and have not accepted Hinton’s ambition. This is a prep choice, not a stated module motive or proof of infection.
“I can walk. Tell me who gets us through that passage if he tells them to close it.”
What they do: Tracks the procedure, notices a PC protecting the exit, and answers a direct question. Offers observations about the sequence they have assisted with; as a geologist, they are not automatically an expert surgeon. Will leave with permission or a credible protected route. If dragged without explanation, protests and points out the immediate danger.
Choose the question the players actually ask. Give one answer, let the NPC do something visible, then return the next decision to the crew.
Glockner & the reactor
When: A PC or Franco confronts Hinton about the betrayal.
HINTON
“Glockner tried to stop me. I killed him. The reactor would have kept the colony here longer. I disabled it.”
JENSEN · PROPOSED RESPONSE
“He brought me here afterward. I cannot undo what he did at the reactor.”
What they do / how to play it
Hinton gives the admission without a roll or an apology, then returns to the instrument. In this proposed version, Jensen does not claim to have witnessed everything. Franco brings his rifle up. Pause and ask who intervenes before anyone fires.
A clear next choice
Let them press for a reason, ask Jensen to come away, or declare an attack and withdrawal plan.
When a check helps
No check to obtain an admission. A clear appeal to Franco can work through his answer; Command or Psychology may inform an uncertain attempt, using the checks reference. Do not roll to decide a PC’s moral choice.
Conversation
Hinton works and answers; Jensen can speak. Attendants watch the crew and preserve access to Hinton. Ask for an objective when the important questions have answers. Polite departure is a real option.
A boundary is crossed
Suggested cue: a guard plants a claw beside the route to the station. Hinton names the limit. Jensen moves the tray out of the proposed line of fire. A suspicious reach or failed deception changes access first; tell the crew what action would provoke a response.
Violence or interference
Hear everyone’s intentions, including escape and casualty support, before resolving the round. Name the nearest threat and route; use actual positions and stat blocks. Jensen seeks cover or the promised exit. If the operation stops, honor the module’s awakening consequence; an analysis check does not cancel it.
Keep the Court inside 45 table minutes
Describe the room, play the questions they ask, then combine the Franco/Jensen complication with their chosen objective. Use two or three dialogue paths as needed. The others are answers to have ready; they are not a required sequence.
Hinton’s surgery is an ongoing process measured in fictional time. Do not finish it because the players spent a few table minutes asking questions. If they spend meaningful time on a task, tell them what changes in the apparatus and what Jensen notices before deciding the next stage.
A safe departure can end the scene immediately. A clever bargain or early rescue earns time for evacuation; it does not summon another compulsory obstacle.
These are suggested responses, not predetermined solutions. Show two or three options when the crew needs direction; their own plan is equally valid.
Keep Hinton talking while establishing whether Jensen can leave.
Show
Hinton answers without bluster. Jensen is within the scene, not concealed behind a secret check.
Ask & resolve
Ask permission to speak with Jensen and leave together. If Hinton refuses, ask what he values: discretion, useful expertise, or leaving his work alone. Only offer terms the crew can actually provide.
Hinton / Court response
Respectful treatment can secure the crew’s own departure. Jensen’s release is a separate request, not an automatic bonus. Play their answer and Hinton’s reasons honestly.
Risk / failure
A threat or deception can cost trust or access. Tell them when guards begin closing a gap. A failed conversation does not instantly make the whole room attack.
Success / next step
They may recover Jensen or information and withdraw without solving the whole hive. Ask whether leaving Hinton at work is acceptable to them.
Using a Noble, Edem, or alien technology
A Noble is a dangerous disruption, not a controllable ally. Let Edem or Jensen warn that the procedure is holding an enormous consciousness near waking. Only use a technological weakness if the crew has actually discovered the device or can reasonably investigate it. Offer a limited effect, explain the risk, and judge their plan.
Edem begins unconscious. They cannot explain the surgery until awake and able to assess it. Help does not mean forgiveness: let them demand a concrete promise about research, evidence, or their family.
Adopt this only where earlier play leaves room. The deaths, injuries, decisions, and head count below are suggested prep; replace any NPC whose fate is already known. No casualties are written into the actual log.
SUGGESTED ARRIVAL
The hangar doors are wedged open despite the rain. Every living person sits in the draft. Two sealed body bags lie beneath the emergency-evacuation poster. Valdez hands you a clipboard with six names and two crossed out. “They were in the safe room. We thought it was the Signal.”
Suggested living evacuees in the hangar
Survivor / condition
What they have done
What they need now
Sgt ValdezAlive · exhausted · left hand bandaged
Keeps the exit covered and carries the head-count clipboard.
A definite departure plan. She will admit the generator move was her decision, then ask whether you are taking command or helping.
HM3 BrookmanAlive · shaking · functioning as medic
Has moved triage onto dry pallets and tagged the walking wounded.
Take Tanaka first. He can hand over access equipment and help carry casualties; keep any keycard already recovered in the PCs’ hands.
PFC TanakaAlive · injured · confused after fume exposure
Needs an escort; cannot reliably manage a climbing harness alone.
Wants to know why Ivanovic is still asleep. Answer through Brookman rather than turning it into a revelation roll.
Dr. KawaguchiAlive · lucid · fiercely angry
Identified the exhaust problem, opened the refuge, and wrote down the Tower reset steps.
Turn off the Signal and leave. Give the crew the instructions now; do not make a rivalry with Edem block essential information.
SobolAlive · bruised · visibly ashamed
Moved the generator, then helped cut the exhaust hose out of the refuge.
Believed the first collapse was alien infection and argued for sealing the room. Wants someone to say it was not his fault; a medical assessment can expose the mundane cause.
Cpl NovikovAlive · armed · close to snapping
Has lashed supplies onto the remaining useful vehicle or handcart.
Leave immediately. Offer “help carry Tanaka or cover the door” as concrete jobs. He does not automatically shoot another survivor.
After the crew left
Valdez consolidated food, medical supplies, and people into the hangar. Brookman prepared a triage corner; Kawaguchi kept a terminal alive. They spent ammunition on threats at the perimeter, without resolving the Tower.
When the power went
Proposed disaster: rising water forced the survivors to move their small combustion generator onto a dry loading platform. Someone pushed its exhaust hose through a wall opening that led into the room they had designated as a quiet refuge. Closed doors kept out rain and noise—and trapped carbon monoxide.
The two deaths
Suggested casualties: Ivanovic and Pedro died in that refuge. No claws, no larvae, no heroic last stand: they lay down because their heads hurt and never got up. Sobol initially argued that the confusion was infection. Kawaguchi forced the door before Tanaka became the third death. Swap these names for anyone whose earlier fate is already established.
What they have done since
They shut the generator down, ventilated the refuge, recovered the bodies, and moved survivors into the draft near the vehicle doors. Medical care and lights now use what portable battery power remains. They have bagged two bodies, prepared six living evacuees, and written a casualty list. Do not invent a seventh hidden death to surprise them later.
Where everyone else is
Edem is with the PCs, Franco was recovered, and Jensen depends on the Court. Yang is unaccounted for in this proposal; check the existing campaign history rather than creating an obligatory rescue mission. Ziegler and all other previously resolved NPCs keep their established fates. The six-person list is a suggested minimum roster, not proof that every unnamed colonist died.
ASK THE CREW
“Six living people are ready to move. Do you take them with you, send someone to prepare them while you clear the Tower, or arrange pickup here? Who is responsible for Tanaka?”
Use 5–10 minutes from the existing escape/Tower budget. Describe the loss, let the crew react, then move to the rescue decision. If they bypass Heron, keep this available for a later clean call or survivor account; do not teleport them back for the scene.
Six more evacuees materially change the rescue. Add them to the PCs, Franco, Edem, and any rescued Jensen before promising a pickup. A long hovering rescue can become untenable; discuss a viable alternative, shelter until a landed window, or whom they can actually extract. Confirm passenger and life-support capacity from the ship sheets.
Heron hydroreactor Destroyed / downTower local supply Independent emergency circuit
Module basis
Heron’s hydroreactor and Tower power are separate (ABH p. 18). A generator at the lift has fuel for six hours (p. 22). The hangar has a different small gasoline generator (p. 20).
Use this specific explanation
Proposed continuity: the Tower’s local emergency circuit was started before the crew left Heron. It powers the control room, transmitter, and a few obstruction lights. The generator and fuel are on a dry platform above the current waterline; its exhaust goes outdoors. This operating state and placement are prep additions, not claims about earlier play.
What the players can perceive
Heron is dark; the Tower has only a few amber lights. At its base, they hear a motor hunting under load and see an emergency-power indicator. Sample explanation from Kawaguchi: “The reactor feeds the station. The relay has its own supply. We lost the base, not the transmitter.” Hinton’s death does not physically disconnect the wired-in carc.
Track the six hours honestly
Count from the generator’s actual start time, not from the PCs reaching the Tower, and do not equate that with storm Hour 1. Choose and note a plausible remaining runtime before play. If the fuel or generator is already lost, the Tower is dark and the local broadcast has stopped; restoration needs power as well as the two resets. Never keep broadcasting on nonexistent fuel.
Cutting power versus taking back communications
Shutting down this supply can silence the transmitter, but leaves the PCs without the relay. Let a controlled shutdown work if their approach supports it; restoring an uncleared interface may restore the Signal too. The clear evacuation path is power available, carc disconnected, controls reset, relay reset, then a confirmed call.
Check which tasks are still outstanding. A task already completed stays completed. Alternate solutions are welcome if they establish an actual working link.
Reach and access the TowerKnown route, access method, reset instructions, and a plan for casualties.
Disconnect → reset both locationsGive the crew concrete roles. Verify power and a clean link before calling.
Get a pilot acknowledgementCoordinates · head count · wounded · pickup method · ETA.
Make the rendezvousChoose a viable location, boarding order, and fallback. A call is a commitment to a plan, not instant extraction.
ASK THE CREW
“What location can you actually reach, how will the pilot identify it, and who helps the wounded board?”
If they avoid the Tower or cannot reach it
Accept a credible alternative link if their equipment and position support one. Otherwise, make survival until a later search explicit: where do they shelter, how do they mark their position, and who watches the water? Resolve the meaningful resource and rescue decisions, then montage uneventful hours. A three-hour session can end in shelter; the ship finale is conditional on getting aboard.
The original ship is the Metamorphosis—Another Bug Hunt’s Jump-2 Class-I Executive Transport (p. 8). The dropship brings them back to it.
The route below is a suggested connection diagram using transport locations, not a measured or canonical deck plan. Maas’s cabin assignment, arrival events, and ADA-7 are prep additions. Use any layout or crew already established at your table.
DropshipDocking collar / airlockPressure passage
Forward / commandBridge · flight · sensors
Workspace / careMedbay · crew quarters
Passenger branchHabitat · Maas’s VIP cabin
Service accessMechanical · life support
Fallback routeCryochamber · escape provisions
At arrival, say where the medical route, flight station, and Maas’s cabin are. The players can split jobs without guessing which door advances the session.
Dropship / nose port / airlock
1 · Docking collar
Suggested arrival: the dropship latches onto the transport and a green pressure lamp replaces the storm noise. Warm filtered air smells almost offensive after Samsa VI. Renfield checks every person across the threshold.
Offer: Transfer patients directly to medical care or stop to isolate cargo and suspected infection. Do not make them search for the medbay.
When danger arrives: If docking or the connecting passage becomes unsafe later, that route is an actual fallback only while the dropship remains attached and usable.
People who make the ship feel inhabited
Anders · pilotModule NPC; return role is suggested
Brings the dropship up, then takes the flight station. He wants a clean docking, a passenger count, and authority to leave the system.
“Medical first. Someone tell me whether the person paying us is still fit to give orders.”
Renfield · co-pilotModule NPC; return role is suggested
Stays with the last evacuee through docking, then monitors sensors and communications. His chatter has stopped; he keeps checking whether everyone made it.
“You were down there with that noise. He was listening to it up here. Should I be worried?”
A service android already aboard, not another planetary survivor. Opens compartments, fetches stretchers, and reports system damage. Needs explicit crew priorities rather than letting corporate paperwork decide triage.
“Passenger assistance and asset recovery are both marked urgent. Which instruction takes precedence?”
Maas · Company liaisonModule NPC
Locate him before staging the threat. Decide who has access to his cabin, who can lock it remotely, and whether the crew has warned the pilots.
Suggested line: “Leave the material here. Medical can wait until the handover is signed.”
Arrival → investigation → crisis
Ascent · 2–3 table minutes
Renfield secures the final harness. Anders asks for a count and one destination: the Metamorphosis. The vibration changes as the dropship clears the weather. Ask each player where their character sits and whom they check on; no mandatory extra crash roll for surviving the pickup.
Dock and triage · 3–4 minutes
Open at the collar, name the crew, point patients toward medical care, and establish who accompanies them. The transport has an airlock and docking connection; do not silently add a second hangar dungeon. ADA-7 is optional staging. Let the clean environment briefly feel safe.
Find Maas · 5–7 minutes
Renfield explains that Maas has not coordinated this rescue. Offer his cabin, a medical screen, or the bridge as direct destinations. If the PCs ask about infection, give observable behavior and access to ordinary evidence. A precautionary lockdown should work if they can actually secure the compartment.
The two crises · 15–20 minutes
If Maas transforms and a messenger can launch, bring in the contact while the crew has an onboard job. Otherwise use the threats still present. Cut between ship phases and onboard rounds. Renfield reports the contact, Anders asks for course and fuel, and ADA-7 identifies real damage. No NPC chooses pursuit for the PCs.
Departure · remaining time
Once safe, show the planet falling behind them and give each survivor one action: accuse Maas, protect Edem, preserve research, or refuse the Company’s debrief. If they won quickly, spend the extra time here rather than growing another monster.
These beats sit inside the existing 35-minute ship budget; ascent can finish the evacuation slot. Medical care, containment, and evidence recovery replace compulsory combat when the crew solves a threat early.
Where is he? Who is exposed? What can the crew seal, guard, or evacuate? Reward precautions and good positioning.
OUTSIDE
Messenger / escape
Who commands? Who flies? Who handles systems? Ask whether they want to disengage or risk stopping it.
Ship exchangeOnboard round 1Onboard round 2Reassess active threats
Use the actual ship rules and prepared ship sheets. This diagram is a cut-between-scenes procedure, not a substitute combat system.
Example: how the first exchange feels
Bridge: show an external contact and announce its threatening approach. Ask for a ship objective and station assignments before resolving anything.
Cut inside: a PC faces the active Maas threat or secures a compartment. Another deals with a casualty or damage that actually occurred. Hear their actions; resolve only meaningful uncertainty.
Return to the bridge: describe the current ship condition and the contact’s movement. If a threat has ended, remove that job. Give the crew the next concrete decision.
Do not make the messenger a prolonged boss fight to fill time. If a Court success prevented its launch, preserve that consequence. Maas, escape, evidence, and the people they saved can carry the ending.
Prep is not a recap. Use this separate field only to record what happened. Worksheet selections above are temporary and do not populate it.
SESSION 04 / CAIRN EXCHANGE / PLAYED
What came back.
The Session 4 run sheet as played, from Cairn Exchange to the observation gallery. Sessions 5 and 6 are on the Asterion tab.
SESSION 4 What came back
default route player choice · click any box to open it
FREE-FORM · USE BETWEEN SCENESCairn street encounters · d10
Between stops in Cairn. At most two per session, about five minutes each.
Gravity seam. The tram rotates ninety degrees and the opposite cliff becomes the floor. Something slips from a PC’s grip. Speed: Caught. / It falls into another district. Lost Property will have it, for a fee.
Repossession. Two insurers are removing a worker’s prosthetic arm on the Staple Bridge, on schedule. The worker, Juno Marsh, keeps apologising. Intellect + Rimwise, or Strength to intimidate: They back off. Juno owes the crew: [+] on one roll in Cairn. / The insurers file a complaint, and the arm goes anyway.
Memorial kiosk. A vending kiosk sells “final moments” recordings of the Samsa dead. Jensen’s face is on the menu. Sanity save: You walk past. / It stays with you.
Licensed rain. Someone above buys a downpour. The meter bills whoever is standing under it. Speed: Dry and unbilled. / Soaked, and billed: note the debt.
Satisfaction survey. A Company drone asks them to rate their rescue experience from one to five, publicly. Intellect + Psychology: A clever answer gets logged: [+] on Q2 at the hearing. / Their rating appears on a district display.
Sobol at the bar. Sobol, one of the Samsa survivors, is drinking alone. They saw everything at the Tower. Intellect + Psychology: Sobol will speak: [+] on Q1 or Q3. / Sobol says they don’t remember anything.
Pickpocket. A kid in a school uniform unclips Marlow’s lead and runs. Speed: Caught. The kid is Assurance Gardens overflow and knows Gate 14’s shift change. / Marlow walks back on his own. The lead is gone.
Visitors’ queue. Families queue outside a holding complex, each with a ticket number. A guard calls “forty-three.” Nobody stands. Sanity save: Steady. / It gets to you.
Spot check. Hale’s patrol stops them for ID and asks why there is a dog. Intellect: Waved through. / Ten minutes lost. Hale remembers their faces: [-] on the alarm roll in a Gate 14 extraction.
Signal preacher. A street preacher plays a scratchy recording and calls it “the call home.” It is the Signal. Intellect + Linguistics / Xenobiology: They realise it leaked from Company files. Reporting it gives [+] on Q4. / Listening costs an extra +1 Stress.
Asterion corridor events · d6
Between rooms at Asterion. One per room at most. If the Attendant is dead, its events are just noises.
Your name. The intercom says a PC’s name, in a nurse’s pre-recorded voice. Fear save: Steady. / Shaken.
Pressure plate. A floor tile clicks underfoot. Speed: Nothing happens. / If the camera loop is still live, the Attendant knows where they are.
Warm drip. Coolant drips from the ceiling. It is not infectious, just slick. Body save: Fine. / [-] on their next physical roll.
A dropped photograph. A girl’s photograph lies face down by a gurney. It is Davi Ors’s daughter. Intellect: Returning it to Davi gives [+] on the R12 sled roll. / Just a photo.
Lights out. The corridor goes dark for long enough to hear six people breathing in unison through the walls. Fear save: Steady. / Shaken.
Pacing. Footsteps behind the wall keep pace with them, then stop when they stop. Sanity save: You keep moving. / You freeze.
THIS SCENE
Read the recap, wake everyone up, and show them the city. Every player rolls once and says one thing.
Session 3 recap · read aloud first
On Samsa VI, you tried to talk Hinton out of becoming a god. When words failed, you replaced Jensen at the apparatus, pulled the cabling, and watched Hinton reconnect it. The Noble began to wake. It killed Jensen. You tore Hinton’s logic core free with a crowbar, left grenades behind, and fled down the stairs, badly wounded. Before escaping in the APC, you destroyed the carcinid ship’s warp drive.
At the Tower, Underhill entrusted his synth dog, Marlow, to you. He killed many carcinids before taking his own life. You disconnected the creature broadcasting the Signal and called for evacuation. Anders, Renfield, and ADA-7 brought you out with Brookman, Kawaguchi, and Sobol. Novikov was infected; you left him behind to die. Valdez was infected too. You put her into medical cryostasis.
Back aboard the Metamorphosis, you exposed Maas’s infection and blew him through a porthole with a grenade. Then the messenger vessel attacked. With hull integrity down to seventy-five percent, a remarkable piece of piloting carried you clear.
You escaped with Dr. Edem, Hinton’s logic core, and carcinid larvae. You prevented Hinton’s ascension. You did not restore Samsa VI’s long-term communications or its terraformer. The signal Hinton already sent is still travelling. In ten years, the carcinid homeworld will receive it.
Now you are entering cryosleep on the way to Company headquarters. Valdez waits in another pod. Marlow is in your care. The people you saved, the injuries you carry, and the things you brought aboard are going with you. What do you want to put right before the Company asks for its report?
READ ALOUD
“Your pod opens under warm white lights. A medic photographs your scars before dressing them. Marlow waits under the chair beside your clothes. Valdez’s pod is still frosted. A printer feeds out your discharge forms. Under her name someone has typed: RETURN TO SERVICE PENDING.”
“Through the shuttle glass you mistake Cairn for a broken planet. Twelve black cliffs turn around a white light, each cliff covered in windows. Bridges hang between them like surgical staples. A train crosses empty space, turns through a quarter circle, and continues along a wall. Your clearance appears across the glass: WELCOME HOME, COMPANY PROPERTY.”
“As you dock, the central light dims. Someone has purchased sunset. The lower windows stay white. Whole terraces of shift workers are still at noon.”
Run it
Read the Session 3 recap (above), then the first read-aloud.
Everyone makes a Body save for cryo sickness.
Read the arrival and docking text.
Show the board: Valdez in secure cryostasis next door; the core and larvae in sealed intake lockers with a chain-of-custody record. ADA-7 has been looking after Marlow.
Go round the table: “What is the first thing you do when you’re on your feet?” One sentence each.
Tell them what is open: the Refit Clinic, Nine Minutes (Edem is waiting), Lost Property, and the Gate 14 visitors’ booth. The Court will call for them once Vale’s assay is ready.
Rolls
Roll
Success
Failure
Body saveEvery PC · Pods open
Wake clear.
[-] on your next physical roll today. Critical failure: you vomit through intake and Vale wants to see you first.
Lines
Intake medic
“Name, number, and anything you brought back that is still alive.”
Tram announcement
“Your medical transport surcharge has been deferred. It has not been waived.”
In this scene
ADA-7 · Synthetic crew member.
Synthetic crew member.
Look: Patched chassis, Marlow’s lead looped round one wrist.
Wants: To be useful, and to be asked.
“Marlow has eaten. I have not needed to.”
In play: Looked after Marlow during cryo. Rides along to Asterion. Can find a spare adapter in R13 if the Berth Twelve test failed.
Kestrel Colonial Holdings’ headquarters: a city dug into twelve fragments of a dismantled moon above the gas giant Pelion. The fragments turn in a crown around a captive fusion light. Bridges and a central spindle hold them together, and gravity follows each district’s floor.
Sound: bridges singing under load, and tram doors announcing gravity changes in the same voice used for missed payments. Smell: wet basalt, brake dust, antiseptic. Weather: licensed rain falls under the pressure roofs. The rich buy fog and long evenings; workers get maintenance drizzle.
Getting around: Berth Twelve (the Jaw) → tram over the Staple Bridge → Refit Clinic (the Rib). Nine Minutes hangs under the bridge. Lost Property is at the foot of the Writ Lift, which climbs to the Dividend Court in the Crown. Assurance Gardens sits behind Gate 14 in the neighbouring fragment.
Everyone in the arc. Each entry lists the scenes they appear in.
Crew & allies
Dr. Edem
Rescued scientist. Furious with the crew.
Look: Refuses the spare chair. Keeps the E-43 file flat under one hand.
Wants: Mara, Ivo and Nadi out of Company custody before anything else.
“You brought me back to the people who own the key.”
In play: If the crew accepts the cost at Nine Minutes, he testifies at the hearing and comes to Asterion ([+] on medical rolls in R10–R11). If not, he consults by text only. He works on Valdez either way. Whether he forgives them is decided at R14.
Look: Three pairs of reading glasses. One index finger has been replaced by a stamp.
Wants: No undocumented loss assigned to her department.
“Nothing is worthless. Somebody is still paying for it.”
In play: Hands over E-43 at Lost Property and marks the priority clause. Can help forge the Gate 14 transfer form. Under Route B she sends the family’s status by text, relayed by Anders in R08.
Look: Broken ankle, archive card on a lanyard, six full teacups on the table.
Wants: Out alive, without being the only name in the report.
“Name? Exit? Equipment? Buddy?… There is a fifth thing. I used to remember it.”
In play: Hands over the forms at the end of R04. In R05 gives the map, card and transfer warning, and refuses any plan that cuts all support at once. Asks to be left out of the report in R08.
Kestrel Colonial Holdings’ headquarters: a city dug into twelve fragments of a dismantled moon above the gas giant Pelion. The fragments turn in a crown around a captive fusion light. Bridges and a central spindle hold them together, and gravity follows each district’s floor.
Sound: bridges singing under load, and tram doors announcing gravity changes in the same voice used for missed payments. Smell: wet basalt, brake dust, antiseptic. Weather: licensed rain falls under the pressure roofs. The rich buy fog and long evenings; workers get maintenance drizzle.
Getting around: Berth Twelve (the Jaw) → tram over the Staple Bridge → Refit Clinic (the Rib). Nine Minutes hangs under the bridge. Lost Property is at the foot of the Writ Lift, which climbs to the Dividend Court in the Crown. Assurance Gardens sits behind Gate 14 in the neighbouring fragment.
A medical workshop cut into basalt, with beds bolted to a sloping wall. People on the terrace above walk upside down beyond the pressure roof. The sign reads COMFORT IS A MAINTENANCE ISSUE.
A narrow canteen hanging under the Staple Bridge, with a glass floor over three levels of traffic. Each booth has a sand timer and prints the cost of the seat. The menu says GOOD SOUP and FULLY REIMBURSED GRIEF.
A counter at the foot of the Writ Lift. Employee nameplates line the shaft, and dead workers’ deductions still tick on small displays. DEATH DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY CLOSE AN ACCOUNT.
Where Edem’s family is held: terraced apartments under a green canopy. Cameras are shaped like birds, every balcony faces inward, and there are no public stairs out. The sign above the gate reads YOUR FAMILY IS OUR FAMILY.
File E-43: DEPENDENT ASSURANCE / RESEARCH OBLIGATION UNFULFILLED. Gate 14 layout: interview booth → handover room → rear service corridor → leased berth at Berth Twelve.
A staircase of bars, bathhouses and sleep-pod hotels climbing the inside of the Rib, lit from below by the captive light. Every price board has a smaller board under it with the real price. This is where Cairn workers spend what the Company pays them, so the Company gets it back.
A corridor of shipping cages behind Berth Twelve where repossessed goods wait for resale: limbs, kitchens, rifles with the names scratched off. The sign says NOTHING HERE IS STOLEN, IT IS RECOVERED.
A hall cut through black moon-rock in the Crown fragment. A white medical-graft tree hangs from the ceiling, and through the glass floor trains carry workers between fragments. A counter over the door charges for attendance. There are three seats: a woman, a machine, a tank.
A berth cut into the underside of the Jaw. The captive light shines upward over scarred ship bellies, and mechanics on the far wall work under a different gravity. Leased berths there sit outside household custody.
Rewritten after Session 4. The full truth (Meridian, the Choir, Dr. Pryce, Dr. Morrow, TERMINUS) is on the Sessions 5–6 · Asterion tab under “Before you run”.
The full map, with a player handout version, is on the Sessions 5–6 · Asterion tab. The evacuation plan in the R01 anteroom has stars drawn beside the crawlway junction (R06), the theatre console (R10) and Engineering (R12).
It starts at 6:00 when they read the intake display at R02. Each scene lists how much fictional time it usually takes; subtract the actual time spent. Table talk costs nothing.
At 4:00, amber beacons. At 2:00, the outer shutters close (manual handles still work). At 1:00, red lamps and hot pipes. At 0:15, the vents unlock. At 0:00, hot sterilant floods the clinical wing and anyone inside dies. The service corridor and the shuttle are outside that zone. The R12 abort stops it permanently, and it never restarts.
A grab uses its Combat and restrains instead of dealing damage. Allies free the target by cutting, hitting the limb, or blocking the route.
Priorities: protect the patient it is carrying → grab the nearest unconnected person → attack whoever blocks it.
On its first Wound it drops what it’s carrying and retreats to R10. A second Wound kills it, and dead stays dead. It moves R04 ↔ R06 ↔ R10 and tracks people through the camera loop until that is cut.
On Samsa VI, you tried to talk Hinton out of becoming a god. When words failed, you replaced Jensen at the apparatus, pulled the cabling, and watched Hinton reconnect it. The Noble began to wake. It killed Jensen. You tore Hinton’s logic core free with a crowbar, left grenades behind, and fled down the stairs, badly wounded. Before escaping in the APC, you destroyed the carcinid ship’s warp drive.
At the Tower, Underhill entrusted his synth dog, Marlow, to you. He killed many carcinids before taking his own life. You disconnected the creature broadcasting the Signal and called for evacuation. Anders, Renfield, and ADA-7 brought you out with Brookman, Kawaguchi, and Sobol. Novikov was infected; you left him behind to die. Valdez was infected too. You put her into medical cryostasis.
Back aboard the Metamorphosis, you exposed Maas’s infection and blew him through a porthole with a grenade. Then the messenger vessel attacked. With hull integrity down to seventy-five percent, a remarkable piece of piloting carried you clear.
You escaped with Dr. Edem, Hinton’s logic core, and carcinid larvae. You prevented Hinton’s ascension. You did not restore Samsa VI’s long-term communications or its terraformer. The signal Hinton already sent is still travelling. In ten years, the carcinid homeworld will receive it.
Now you are entering cryosleep on the way to Company headquarters. Valdez waits in another pod. Marlow is in your care. The people you saved, the injuries you carry, and the things you brought aboard are going with you. What do you want to put right before the Company asks for its report?
Campaign state carried into Session 4
Person / thread
Outcome
Party
Escaped with major injuries; entering cryostasis en route to Company headquarters. Individual Wounds and infection status remain on the character sheets.
Dr. Edem
Recovered. Trust is broken because the PCs prevented him retrieving his carcinid research. His family remains in Company holding as blackmail to force him to work. Medical condition follows prior play; release and restored trust are unresolved.
Edem’s family
Still held by the Company. Their detention and its link to the missing research are Warden-confirmed facts. Mara, Ivo, and Nadi, E-43, and Assurance Gardens are proposed new details, not recorded Session 3 outcomes.
Hinton
Logic core extracted and recovered; prevented from becoming a carcinid god. Remaining body condition unconfirmed.
Jensen
Killed by the waking Noble.
Noble
Began waking; grenades left to damage it. Its final condition is unconfirmed.
Underhill / Marlow
Underhill was infected and took his own life after killing carcinids. His synth dog Marlow is in the party’s care.
Brookman / Kawaguchi / Sobol
Successfully evacuated. Many other survivors died; no complete casualty list supplied.
Novikov
Infected and left behind to be killed by carcinids. Death was not separately witnessed in the report.
Valdez
Infected; in medical cryostasis. Cure unresolved.
Anders / Renfield / ADA-7
Conducted the successful dropship evacuation.
Maas
Infected; blown out through a porthole with a grenade.
Metamorphosis / messenger
Hull integrity reduced to 75%; party escaped by a critical piloting success. Messenger’s subsequent course is unknown.
Recovered evidence
Hinton’s logic core and secured carcinid larvae. Dr. Edem was rescued. No alien transmitter or extra research archive is assumed recovered.
Samsa VI
Broadcasting carcinid disconnected; evacuation radio contact achieved. Long-term communications and terraforming were not restored; terraformer restoration was not feasible.
Homeworld call
Already sent. Ten years until receipt, as known by the party. This is not a confirmed fleet arrival date.
Other NPCs / travel time
Franco and other unmentioned NPCs retain their established status. Voyage duration is not set; subtract actual elapsed time from the ten-year estimate.
SESSIONS 05–06 / ASTERION ANNEX / MERIDIAN
Admitted. Discharged.
One room at a time, in the order you run it. Everything for a room is in its card: read-alouds, dialogue, rolls and stat blocks.
TONE
Dread, not jokes. Nobody in Asterion is funny. The building is polite, and that is what makes it horrible.
The intercom is always warm and always kind. Never let it raise its voice.
Describe bodies precisely: what has been joined, what has been smoothed over, what still moves. One exact detail beats three adjectives.
The Choir breathes in every room. When the table goes quiet, say “in, out” under your breath.
Let silences sit. Ask “what do you do?” and wait.
The truth about Asterion (Warden only)
MERIDIAN is a Kestrel Wellness surgical graft: a living culture that heals a wound by replacing the damaged tissue with its own. Dr. Edem designed it twelve years ago to grow skin for burn victims. The Company bought it. Owning Meridian is what Thren meant by “the research obligation.”
Two years ago Kestrel sent Asterion staff infected with the same carcinid strain as Valdez. Meridian ate the alien tissue out of them: “motor conversion arrested.” That is the cure. That is also why the Company sent Edem to Samsa, to learn why it worked.
Then it kept going. Meridian treats anything that differs from its template as damage: scars, age, prosthetics, synthetic parts, and in the end the edges between one person and another. Six patients now share one nervous system and one breath. They call themselves nothing. Staff called them the Choir.
The chief surgeon, Dr. Anselm Pryce, applied it to himself after an infected patient bit him. Meridian mended him into his instruments and his gurney. He is the Attendant. He still admits patients, because the Choir is the only thing he has left to look after.
Dr. Nessa Morrow, clinical supervisor, called the results “the best of my career.” She stopped reporting eight weeks ago and never applied TERMINUS, the off-switch built into Meridian. She is still in the recovery suites. Meridian has made her perfect.
The voice on the intercom is Ilse Haddad, the night charge nurse. She was calling a code over the PA when Meridian reached the Nurses’ Station, and it mended her into the switchboard. She sees every camera and tells the Attendant where the patients are. She knows the crew’s names because their Kestrel contract enrolled them in Kestrel Wellness: Voss referred them the day they signed, and every Kestrel clinic can read the file. The Intake camera matched the spotted PC to their contract photo, and Ilse made up Bed Seven (R04A).
The building’s emergency controller detected uncontrolled growth and is counting down to thermal sterilization. It can only be aborted from Engineering.
The crew already has some Meridian aboard: the patient from Intake, sedated and strapped into their shuttle. The graft in him keeps mending. Over two sessions it mends his straps, then his seat, then the deck around it. Anders’s radio check-ins track it (one per marked room); it becomes a fight at the dock.
Director Voss knew all of this. “Inhibition culture” is the Company’s manifest name for the Meridian seed. She sent the crew to recover Kestrel’s most valuable asset and told them only what they needed to bring it home.
Voss’s briefing, line by line: still true?
What the crew was told at the Court, checked against the rewrite.
“Six patients still registering alive”
True. The Choir: Rane, Venn, Serrin, Holt, Ors, Fen. They are alive, and joined (R04, separated at R10).
“One technician requesting extraction”
True. Lian Mercer, in the Staff Refuge (R05).
“Retrieve the inhibition culture from COLD STORAGE”
True. The Meridian seed is labelled INHIBITION CULTURE on the Company manifest (R09). Voss did not say what it does.
“Abort the sterilization system at ENGINEERING; we cannot do it remotely”
True. Local abort only (R12). Letting it burn breaks the contract, and Voss will make them pay for it.
“Do not trust the intercom”
True. It is Ilse Haddad, the night charge nurse, mended into the PA (R04A). She speaks for the building and guides the Attendant. Once she is silent, the Choir uses the speakers (R08).
Live Meridian. On its own it is what happened to Asterion.
TERMINUS (Clinical Archive, or Edem from memory, or Morrow)
The off-switch. Meridian finishes its work, then dies.
Both, delivered to Vale
A cure for Valdez, and the only treatment for any PC carrying Graft.
Pay (Asterion contract)
10,000cr each, +1,000cr per patient brought out alive, +2,000cr for the culture or the archive.
Mr Smith (Ostrander Biologic)
50,000cr for a live seed sample, no questions. His team docks during Session 6.
The passenger (Teodor Brann)
A whole living Meridian host, already aboard their shuttle. Ostrander or Voss would take it instead of the seed. Anders has to sit with it for six hours.
Director Voss
Wants the culture, the archive, the abort, and Edem. She decides what Kestrel does to the crew at R14.
Graft: Meridian exposure (House rule)
Whenever a Meridian creature or device damages a PC, that PC makes a Body Save. Failure: +1 Graft. Androids roll it too: Meridian treats a chassis as damage.
1 · Mended
The wound closes in seconds. Heal 1d10 Health now. The new skin is flawless: no pores, no hair, no scar. Androids: skin grows over a panel seam.
2 · Improved
[+] on Strength Checks. [-] on Sanity Saves. You breathe in time with the Choir; in a quiet room the others can hear it. Androids: their coolant runs red.
3 · Admitted
You know exactly where Bed Seven is. Whenever you take Stress, Sanity Save or spend your next action walking toward the Choir. If still Admitted when the session ends, you go to bed unless someone restrains or sedates you.
TERMINUS removes all Graft (the mended skin sloughs off: 1d10 Damage, scars return). Burning a mended patch removes 1 Graft (1d10 Fire Damage). Nothing else works.
Click a room to open it. Solid: corridors and doors. Dashed: the service crawlway under the floors. Dotted: the external service corridor from Engineering back to the dock, outside the sterilization zone. Stars: what Morrow marked on the plan.
HERE
The observation gallery, exactly where Session 4 ended. The Attendant comes through the ward door for the PC the camera tagged.
GET
Survival. Wound it once and it flees: through the ward and down a cable hole too small to follow.
DANGER
It acts first and has [+] on its first grab. If it is still holding someone when it retreats, it takes them to Bed Seven.
SENSES
One squeaking wheel. Rubber soles on tile. Antiseptic. Six people breathing faster on the other side of the glass.
This room usually takes 0:10 off the clock.
1. Recap
READ ALOUD
Cairn Exchange. You thawed into a city carved from a broken moon and stood in front of the Dividend Court: a woman in mourning, a machine with seals for fingers, and a head in an amber tank. You won. Mara, Ivo and Nadi Edem walked out of Company custody, and they are waiting for him in Berth Twelve.
You spent your pay. Two of you bought new eyes. Someone sold something they should not have to a man called Mr Smith.
Then Vale showed you a slice of tissue from a Company clinic called Asterion, and your larvae turned toward it. Six patients still registered alive there. Nobody was coming for them.
Asterion was white and clean and polite. A body in a patient bag mouthed at you from the docking clamps. In Intake, a hand in a glove closed around a boot, and a screen began counting down six hours to sterilization. In the observation gallery, six patients breathed as one, and one of them wrote HELP US SLEEP on the glass.
A camera found one of you. The label under your face changed from WARM BODY to SURGICAL. And from somewhere down the corridor, a single gurney wheel began to squeak. Closer. Closer.
2. The squeak stops
READ ALOUD
The squeak stops just outside the ward door. Behind the glass, all six patients turn their heads toward it at the same moment, the way a field turns toward wind.
The door opens inward. It comes in low and smooth. Above the waist it is a surgeon: green scrubs, a paper mask that has grown into the skin of its face, kind tired eyes. Below the waist there is no below the waist. His spine runs down into the steel frame of a surgical gurney like a root into a pot. One wheel squeaks.
From where the instrument tray should be, six long arms unfold. Each ends in something from a surgical kit. Each is wrapped in the same grey, glossy tissue as the cables in the ward.
DOEveryone makes a Panic Check: first sight of a horrifying entity (PSG 21.2). Roll d20; equal to or under current Stress panics. If two or more panic at once, everyone else checks again.
Intercom, warm
“[The spotted PC], your bed is ready.”
The Attendant, through the mask
“Hold still. This will only hurt for a moment, and then it won’t hurt ever again.”
WHO Dr. Anselm Pryce · the Attendant · Chief surgeon, mended into his instruments.
Look: Green scrubs above the waist; a paper mask grown into the skin of his face. Below the waist his spine runs down into the frame of a surgical gurney. One wheel squeaks.
Wants: Every warm body in a bed. The Choir kept safe.
“Hold still. This will only hurt for a moment, and then it won’t hurt ever again.”
3. The fight
FIGHT · PSG 26–28
The Attendant (Dr. Pryce)
Combat 55 · Instinct 60 · AP 10 · 3 Wounds × 20 Health
A surgeon from the waist up; a gurney from the waist down. Six long arms unfold from where the instrument tray should be.
Instruments: 2d10 Damage, Bleeding Wound. Meridian exposure.
Admit: Combat roll to grab. The target is restrained and dragged one band per round toward the nearest empty bed. Break free with Strength [-], or an ally deals 10+ Damage to the holding arm.
Priorities: admit the nearest warm body → cut whoever blocks it → shield the Choir with its own body.
Session 5: it cannot be killed. At its first Wound in R03 it flees through the ward and down the cable hole under Bed 06 into the crawlway. In R08 it escapes down the specimen lift to the theatre. Pursuit rules are in those rooms. Session 6 is its last stand.
Between sessions it mends back to full Health, but Wounds stay.
Weakness: Heat. Fire and burns ignore its AP and those Wounds never mend. The theatre autoclave kills it outright.
Setup: It acts first this round (the camera saw them) and has [+] on its first Admit against the spotted PC. If anyone fired a gun in R02 that is the same [+]; it does not stack. From round 2, use normal order or a Speed Check for strict order (PSG 26).
Round 1: Admit the spotted PC. On a hit, describe the arm closing like a blood-pressure cuff and the gurney turning for the ward door.
Anyone who blocks it gets instruments (2d10). Every hit that does damage: Body Save or +1 Graft. Describe the cut sealing itself under their fingers.
It never lets the fight reach the glass. It will take a hit to protect the Choir.
Missed gunfire hits the observation glass: the first miss cracks it, the second shatters it, and the Choir’s breathing floods the gallery (everyone Sanity Save).
Ends: At its first Wound it folds its arms like a closing umbrella and rolls backward through the ward door, fast. If it is still holding someone, it is carrying them to Bed Seven. If they chase it, use “The chase” below.
ROLL · PSG 18Strength [-]· A grabbed PC · Each round in its grip
Success: Free, and Close to it.
Failure: Dragged one band toward the ward. +1 Stress.
ROLL · PSG 28Combat· An ally · Hitting the arm that holds them
Success: 10+ Damage to that arm frees the PC (it still counts against Health).
Failure: The arm tightens: the held PC takes 1d5.
IF Someone uses a tranq dart
It hits and the Attendant fails its Body Save (Instinct 60): the surgeon’s head drops onto his chest, asleep. The gurney keeps rolling and the arms keep working at [-] for 1d10 rounds. Edem, quietly: “You put him to sleep. Not it.”
4. The chase
DOIt is fast on smooth tile and it has a head start: it reaches the hole at the end of round 2. Each round, anyone chasing gets one attack at [-] (it is moving and its arms are folded over its body) or one move. A second Wound does not stop it: it simply stops fighting back and keeps going. It cannot be killed in Session 5.
READ ALOUD
You come through the ward door behind it. As the gurney passes each bed, the patient in it sits up, all six at once, and turns to face you. Their arms come up from under the sheets, wide, like people stopping traffic.
All six, softly
“Not him. Please. He’s ours.”
What happens in the ward
Shooting past the Choir
Every missed shot, roll d10: on 1–3 it hits a patient instead (roll d6 for which bed). A patient hit for 10+ dies, and the other five scream.
Pushing through the beds
The Choir reach for whoever passes: Strength to get through, or held for a round. Their hands are warm. Body Save or +1 Graft.
If it is carrying someone
It lays them in Bed Seven with surprising tenderness, tucks the sheet, and leaves them. The cable starts for the back of their neck (see Bed Seven in R04). The crew has to choose: their crewmate, or the chase.
READ ALOUD · Whoever reaches the bed
Under Bed 06, where the floor tiles have lifted furthest, there is a hole the width of a bin lid. The cables run down into it. The Attendant reaches it, pours its six arms down into the dark like someone emptying a bucket, and the gurney folds up after them, frame and wheels and all, with a sound like a deckchair closing. The surgeon’s face goes last. It looks up at you on the way down.
If they keep trying
Grab it as it goes
Strength [-]. Success: they hold the gurney frame for a round, and it takes 1d10 from each arm that brushes them on the way past (Body Save or +1 Graft). Then it pulls free. Failure: they are pulled in up to the shoulder before they let go: 1d10 Damage, Body Save or +1 Graft.
Look down the hole
Cables, thick as a wrist, packed tight and warm, going down into the crawlway. Far below, a wheel squeaks, then stops. The hole is too tight for a person and the cables fill it.
Shoot down the hole
Every cable flinches at once and all six patients cry out. Nothing else happens.
Go after it the long way
There is no way down from here. Mercer’s map later shows the crawlway (R06), and the crew gets there from the refuge.
5. After
READ ALOUD
The squeak fades into the floor and on, somewhere deeper. In the silence you hear the Choir breathing fast, then slower, then together again. Six hands are pressed flat to the inside of the glass, all at the height of the one of you it nearly took.
DOAnyone with a fresh Graft notices it now: the cut is gone, the skin over it flawless and faintly warm. Introduce the Graft track (sidebar). Do not explain it; let them poke at it.
Anders, on the radio (passenger 1 of 5)
“Your passenger’s still asleep. Breathing’s slow, like you said. Funny thing. It’s breathing in time with something. And its hands keep… moving. Like it’s folding laundry.”
6. Things to touch
DOThings for the players to poke at. None of them start a fight; most cost a little Stress.
If they touch it, look at it, or try it
Breathe on the glass
It fogs, and handprints show through from the inside: dozens, small and large, layered for weeks. The old letters come back, HELP US SLEEP, and under them, new: NOT YOU. YOU STAY. Sanity Save.
The visitors’ book
Eight weeks of entries in one neat hand: VISITOR: DR A. PRYCE · RELATIONSHIP: ATTENDING. Today’s last line, still wet: the spotted PC’s name, in a hand that is not theirs.
A visitor’s chair
One of the chairs is warm, with a dent in the cushion as if someone has just got up. Nobody did.
The call button by the door
“Hello, visitor. Who are you here to see?” Whatever name they give: “Lovely. I’ve put you down as family.”
The scalpel it dropped
Still warm. It flexes, gently, curling toward the palm that holds it. A good blade (1d10), but every time it draws blood, the wielder makes a Body Save or +1 Graft.
Where next
SESSIONS 06–07 / CAIRN EXCHANGE / SIX MONTHS LATER
Wake
Session 6 played the missions and the clinic, and stopped at Hale’s line. Session 7 opens at S7-01, then the night is open: Berth Twelve is the hub, the clock runs in the sidebar from 23:00 to 06:00, and the siege comes at 03:00.
TONE
Dread, not jokes. Cairn is busy and loud. The light underneath it is patient.
The pulse: when the table goes quiet, tap the table slowly, 11 times. After 05:00, tap 12.
Heralds are kind. That’s the horror. The people who come back are gentler and more loving than they were. “She came back kinder. That’s how I knew.”
Nobody says “Noble” or “alien” this session. Things are wrong, and people are frightened.
Let silences sit. Ask “what do you do?” and wait.
What’s true right now
SESSION 7 OPENS at Berth Twelve’s yellow line, face to face with Captain Hale (S7-01). Session 6 (2026-11-05) ended there. The night clock hasn’t started. Nadi was not taken; Click is dead.
On the tram the crew killed both Heralds and the civilians in the car. Hale has the footage. Ostrander has the graft scraping (Edem didn’t see it taken, but caught them at Nadi’s dressing). Oskar was renewed; Saar is with Ostrander.
Edem comes clean at Berth Twelve: all of it, at once (S7-02). No more secrets from him.
Six months since Asterion. Both cells have worked for their new patrons the whole time. They finish one last job each (S6-00), then come home to Cairn for a night off.
Edem, Mara, Ivo and Nadi have spent six months off Cairn, aboard the Long Evening: a decommissioned sleeper liner Ostrander keeps parked in a quiet high orbit, 30 minutes from Cairn by skiff. The Ostrander cell has lived aboard between jobs. Edem grows Ostrander’s seed culture in its medbay. Corwin guards it all with two operators. Kestrel doesn’t know where it is.
Tonight both cells come down to Cairn for shore leave. Hours later Edem brings Nadi down after them, because Vale’s is the only scanner in reach that reads Meridian. Once the writ lands, Hale locks every outbound berth and scans for Meridian: from then on Nadi can’t leave Cairn, though anyone else can.
Voss has TERMINUS and Morrow at Kestrel Tower. Anders has flown the Kestrel cell for six months.
Valdez has spent six months in rehab at the Refit Clinic. She is discharged tonight and has asked for the whole crew.
Click (Toma Bell, Vale’s gear tech) went missing in the Grates three weeks ago and walked back in this morning. He is the first Herald. Mercer is at the clinic for Valdez’s discharge, leads everyone to Berth Twelve, and is taken at 01:00.
The truth (Warden only)
Cairn is the alien. The broken moon the city is carved from is a dormant Noble ark. Kestrel found it decades ago, cut it into the twelve fragments that make the city, and has mined it ever since. The “captive light” at the centre is its heart.
The ten-year call from Samsa VI didn’t need ten years. The ark heard it at once and has been waking ever since. Four days ago the light started to pulse, 11 beats a minute.
It wants to heal. Waking, it mends the way Meridian mends, using whatever is nearest, which is people. Meridian is a scrap of its own healing tissue. The Tithe (Cairn’s missing poor, taken into the deep works for decades) are its stitches.
Heralds are people taken below and sent back up as perfect, kind copies. They collect, and they want Nadi Edem most: Edem healed her burns with Meridian when she was three, so she is the one piece of the ark that can already speak for it.
Edem didn’t design Meridian. He was a junior on Kestrel’s dig under Cairn twelve years ago, stole a sample, and published it as his own. His field notebook proves it (L2). In Session 7 he confesses everything at Berth Twelve and gives them the locker number.
Off Cairn, the ark still reaches through its own tissue. Ostrander’s seed culture, aboard the Long Evening, woke when the light began to pulse and took Corwin at 21:00 tonight.
Voss has always known what is under Cairn. She wants to be the one who answers it, with Nadi as her translator. Ostrander’s principal wants Nadi too: a living, stable Meridian host.
The cold war: each cell’s secret objective
Send these privately (a text or a folded note) at the end of each mission’s debrief.
OSTRANDER CELL · Smith’s principal
A sample of Nadi’s graft, without Edem knowing. And: nobody from Kestrel learns where the Long Evening is.
“Enjoy your evening. The little girl’s graft is of great interest to us. If the chance comes to take a scraping, take it. Dr Edem doesn’t need to know. He’s had enough bad news.” If asked why: “Mr Edem gave us a seed in a box. His daughter is a seed that grew up. You can see the difference in value.”
KESTREL CELL · Director Voss
Edem’s field notebook from the dig twelve years ago. And: if Kestrel ever has a legal claim on the girl, be ready to serve it.
“Take the night. You’ve earned it. One thing, when you have the chance: Dr Edem worked my dig here twelve years ago, as a junior. He took something from it. I want his field notebook. Not the published work. The notebook.” If asked which dig: “The one under your feet.”
HERE
Berth Twelve’s yellow line, where Session 6 stopped. Captain Hale and two custodians on one side; Mercer’s berth on the other. Marta Fenn arrives with her husband’s egg crate.
GET
Over the line, and Hale either an uneasy ally or a standing murder charge. The tram, coming home to them.
DANGER
Hale won’t cross the line, but she’ll do anything up to it. Marta might.
SENSES
The custodians’ lamps. The light under the deck, pulsing. A cracked egg crate dripping on the yellow paint.
1. Previously (read to open Session 7)
READ ALOUD
Six months apart. One last job each: a keeper who didn’t know he was a copy, and a geneticist with a kill switch in her neck. A night off on Cairn. A dream about being cut into twelve pieces, and more than one of you having it.
Then the clinic. Valdez on her feet. Edem through the door with Nadi, and her arm moving under the skin, keeping time with the light. A writ. And Click, who came back from the Grates kind, opening up like a seed case with Nadi in his arms.
You got her back. Then the light went out over the whole of Cairn.
On the tram, in the dark between fragments, ten passengers stood up and faced the girl. You didn’t wait to find out which of them were people.
Now you’re at Berth Twelve, at a line of yellow paint, and Captain Hale is on the other side of it.
2. Hale at the line
WHO Captain Tamsin Hale · Station security. Serving the writ.
Look: An artificial eye that timestamps everything. Physical keys outside her uniform.
Wants: Instructions carried out, and no more than that. Tonight her instructions have stopped covering what she’s seen, and she knows it.
Speaks in timestamps, flatly, reading her eye: “Twenty-two forty-one and seven seconds. You fired eleven rounds into a tram car.” Then: “I have signed instructions.”
READ ALOUD
Hale doesn’t draw. Her artificial eye whirs, and she reads from it in a flat voice, as if from a ledger.
Hale, to whoever’s in front
“Twenty-two forty-one and seven seconds. Tram 9, between the Jaw and the Rib. Eleven rounds fired inside the car. Ten passengers. Ten dead.” A pause. “Two of them didn’t bleed. I’d like someone to explain that to me, because I have to write it down.”
Hale
“I have signed instructions for the girl. I don’t have any for what I watched on that footage. I’m not crossing this line tonight. I want to know if I should be standing on it facing you, or facing the other way.”
ROLLIntellect + Psychology ([+] if they show her a Herald body, Click’s remains, or the two that didn’t bleed)· A PC, telling her straight · Convincing Hale what they are
Success: She looks at the floor for a long moment. “Then I’ll stand facing the other way.” She gives them the custodian band frequency, and she holds the line all night. Tick “Hale convinced”. At the siege she fights for them without a roll.
Failure: She files the tram as eight murders. Every custodian on Cairn has their faces by 00:00: [-] in the Crown, the Court refuses them a hearing, and custodians outside the line shoot first. Tick “tram dead”.
WARDEN ONLYNot a fight unless they start one; if they do, use Hale’s block from S6-06. She never steps over the line.
3. Marta Fenn
WHO Marta Fenn · Egg seller on the Staple Bridge. Her husband Ansel was the egg man on the tram.
Look: Huge, flour to the elbows, carrying the cracked egg crate from the tram like a coffin.
Wants: The names of whoever shot Ansel. Then, after midnight, for someone to tell her the man in her kitchen isn’t him.
LOUD. Counts everything out in eggs: “Twelve eggs he left with. ELEVEN in the crate. And him on the floor of a tram with a hole in him.” Never lowers her voice once.
READ ALOUD
Before anyone can answer, a big woman shoves past the custodians, flour to the elbows, carrying a cracked egg crate in both arms like a coffin. Egg runs down her apron.
Marta, to the nearest PC, LOUD
“TWELVE eggs he left with. Twelve! And they give me back ELEVEN and a crate with a hole in it, and him on the floor of Tram 9. Which of you? WHICH OF YOU?”
DOPlay her loud the whole time and never lower her voice. She wants names. Hale doesn’t stop her: “She’s on my side of the line. She can say what she likes.” Sanity Save for whoever fired into the car: failure, +1d5 Stress.
IF They give her a name, or a straight answer
She goes quiet for the first time, then: “He was a stupid man and I loved him.” She leaves the crate on the line. At 00:00 she calls the berth screaming: Ansel has come home (night clock).
IF They lie, or say nothing
She spits on the line and goes. At 00:00 she calls anyway, because there’s nobody else who’ll believe her.