Mothership 1E
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Finished on: Jul 23, 2024

A sci-fi horror tabletop RPG with some of the most evocative RPG modules I’ve ever read. I can’t wait to play this!

Special mention goes to:

  • The Gradient Descent module, a not-so-mega mega dungeon, featuring an advanced android manufacturing factory, colloquially known as the Deep, taken over by an all-seeing AI, the Monarch, that was designed to help run the factory but eventually took it over completely. The player characters either start out as Divers who delve into the facility repeatedly to find Artifacts or find themselves with amnesia deep within the facility seeking to escape. Either way, the PCs will have to reckon with the Bends, a psychological ailment afflicking all of those who brave the Deep, a sickness that causes you to question whether or not you’re actually a human with some semblance of free will or an android under the control of the Mornarch.
  • The Dead Planet module featuring a cursed planet that strands any ships that find themselves in its vicinity (think the Bermuda Triangle) and curses the inhabitants of these ships to death or a life’s worth of toil building a gate to a realm of horror and death.

The official modules are packaged as zines with gritty diegetic aesthetics that really sell the fantasy of the setting described within them. Of course, to really bring these modules to life, you as the Referee will have to do the hard work. But the amazing presentation of them really helped me imagine what playing these modules could be like and, in doing so, got me really excited to start running them ASAP.