Mothership: Two Creatures, a Class, an NPC, a Goddess, and a Flying City

Here's some more stuff for Mothership. However, aside from the Innocent (which is really just a character archetype), you could use most of this in any system and setting.

Garuda

Named for the legendary mount of the Hindu god Vishnu, Garuda are genetically engineered birds with internal antigravity plates, designed to carry passengers as they fly.

By Moebius

The largest birds in Earth's history had wingspans of around twenty four feet, around seven and a third metres. The largest living ones are albatrosses, with wingspans of eleven and a half (three and two thirds). On alien worlds, with denser atmospheres and lower gravities, the largest wingspan yet found is the thirty feet of M. lindberghii, native to the Company colony of New Kinshasa.

But even on these low gravity worlds, the dream of the flying mount was just a dream, and nothing more. Until Company analysts started to send surveys to the rich and powerful. It was slow going at first – advertisements are for the unwashed masses, after all – but once they started getting responses, the idea was floated and positively received.

Each Garuda is more wing than body, and their brains are simple, unable to do anything but fly at their jockey's command. Garuda "feed" on a high energy predigested slurry, which is pumped into their bodies by connecting a hose to the creepy metal nozzle they have in place of a throat. The slurry is filled with nutrients, energy, and oxygen, capable of sustaining them for days of flight and weeks of downtime between feedings. Their legs are merely vestigial, and they rest on rotund bellies softened with fat not for their comfort but for their rider's, so that landings are cushioned.

By James Gurney

You might be thinking: "Hey, I know this is scifi, but how on earth were they able to design a flying mount?" Well, that's because their designers cheated. Every Garuda is filled with artificial gravity plates. The smallest models might have a single one just to keep them afloat, but larger types have several, as much an agrav* with an organic shell as they are an actual animal. They are still propelled by muscle, of course, but pedants are quick to complain that you might as well cover an agrav with feathers and say it's a beast as well.

The smallest Garuda are designed to carry a single rider and little else. The largest, often referred to as "sky-whales", have multiple sets of wings and entire rooms built on their backs and bellies, or even into their bodies. The newest "Leviathan" models have a single spiral staircase that can take you from a viewing dome on the top to another on the bottom in less than a minute of walking.

While initially designed and mostly made for luxury purposes, Garuda have found some limited use in search and rescue, exploration, and military roles. Their use of agrav plates doesn't require that they hold up the full weight of what they carry, and as they are mostly organic, the weight they do have to support is much less than that of a metal vehicle. On worlds where supply lines are non-existent, such as backwater colonies or uncharted systems, the expense of a Garuda can be worth taking one in place of an agrav. In terms of weight, carrying slurry tanks is more efficient than carrying fuel or batteries, making them well suited to situations where recharging from a generator is not a reliable option.

*An agrav is a vehicle which makes use of antigravity or artificial gravity plating to fly. Some ground vehicles or conventional planes and helicopters use agrav plates to support themselves, but an agrav vehicle is one that is fully dependent on their use.

Muninn

Intelligent – though only protosapient – crows with recording and tracking devices embedded into their bodies, as well as chameleonine feathers and the ability to speak and even hold simple conversations. They are named for one of the two ravens of the Norse god Odin, who were said to fly across the world at dawn each day, returning to the god at dinner to recite what they had learned in their travels.

By Darko Tomic

Their species implies their most common use, which is to hunt, tracking quarry via a "third eye" camera set between their two true ones. It can show them images in infrared, light amplified, and just generally magnified forms. Most of their extra brainpower is devoted to understanding the nature of tracking, to be able to predict where a target will go even when they can't see them.

A Muninn's feathers are capable of changing colour like a chameleon's scales. They use this ability mostly at a distance, blending in with the sky before shifting to a normal colour when they perch alongside other birds. Crows are among the most common Earth transplant species in the human sphere, ensuring they blend in on most planets. For those worlds where they don't, specially made non-crow versions are available.

Because Muninn are, aside from their camera and brain augmentation, functionally identical to a crow, they are difficult creatures to track. In extreme situations such as after EMPs or when communications channels are being monitored or jammed, a Muninn can function without their implants or without radio connection. In fact, most Muninn "run dark" by default, only transmitting recorded information via a physical connection to prevent their communications from being tracked. Or just by talking. Did I mention they can talk?

Huginn and Muninn, Odin's raven scouts, were granted the ability to speak. The modern Muninn is no different. Talking pets have been around for centuries at this point, and the general agreement has been that anything that isn't an uplift – and therefore not a pet – is boring at best, unsettling at worst. Because speech is not typically necessary for animals, and is expensive and slow to augment into a creature, it is rarely granted. But Muninn can make use of it, both to transmit the information they've received and to carry messages of their own.

By Front 404

The supernatural elements of Mothership give hope that there may be psychics, souls, and even afterlives in the setting (there certainly are in mine), but at least in our reality, entropy always wins. If something can be spied on, it will be spied on. No defense is impenetrable, and so even the most secure lines of communication can be monitored, bugged, and recorded. Forget your enemies – the Company will gladly spy on anyone they think it could be worth watching.

Muninn help escape this problem. There's no phone to be bugged, no databank to steal and crack. The crows aren't intelligent enough to understand the messages they're carrying, or be bribed or tortured into revealing them, and, as of yet, the organic brain proves impossible to read via technology. (In those few places where psychics are starting to become exploited, animal brains are actually harder to read than human ones.) They can carry a message, unseen and unheard, and even elaborate on it. They can record a response and return to their owner with it. Due to their organic nature, they can even fly for days, weeks in some rare cases, to carry a message "as the crow flies".

A Muninn can be killed by a firm punch, but landing one is not easy. Hitting an unaware Muninn requires a normal Combat test, but hitting a Muninn that's actively moving requires a critical hit. Hitting an aware, flying Muninn at anything but the closest ranges is an exercise in futility, and requires a roll of exactly one. If you hit a Muninn, it has only 3 HP.

The Lady In White

A celebrity bodyguard for those in high society. No one knows what she looks like or even what she sounds like, as she always wears the same white bodysuit with a mask and voice scrambler. The only part of her anyone can see is her snow white hair, always worn in a bun. She favours close-range combat, and carries a katana, kris, and Scholz and Vogel "Fafnir" plasma pistol.

In addition to being a fashion statement, branding image, and easy way to stand out in do or die situations, the Lady's suit is also a highly advanced piece of armour. Despite being almost skintight and highly flexible, the suit has been shown to block bullets and blades in the several recorded fights she has been in. Her aversion to being hit indicates it isn't able to always block such strikes, but there are purchasable models of armour roughly comparable to what she wears. If you had millions of dollars to spare, at least.

Everything she wears, and every weapon she wields, is coated in a superthin layer of a highly hydrophobic substance. This gives it a brilliant sheen, but more notably causes blood to slip off of it in a few short seconds. By the time she sheathes her blades, they and her clothes are as white as they were before, leaving her immaculate and untouched.

The Lady has become notorious as a mysterious figure of uncanny grace. Clients hire her as much for her ample skill as for the status of being protected by her, and those who have the fortune of speaking to her describe her as cold, sarcastic, but ultimately an interesting person to talk to. But make no mistake: the Lady does what she does for the thrill of the fight, not for a place in high society. At the slightest sign of threat, she jumps from casual conversation to active combat in the blink of an eye, before returning without so much as acknowledging the combat once the all clear is sounded. Or not returning, if she was finding the conversation boring.

She prefers to take contracts she expects will have a high chance of seeing actual combat, and as a result tends to guard the kind of executive PCs will want to kill or manipulate. The Lady has developed a reputation as a duelist, challenging those who insult or rival her to legal duels, and offering herself as a champion to those challenged by someone or someone with a champion she wants to fight.

Combat 67%

Armour 3 or 2

Body 40%

Speed 50%

Instinct 33%

Health 60 or 15

Attacks Katana: 3D10 or D6+1, 2 Hands

Kris: 2D10 or D6, 1 Hand

Plasma Pistol: D100 or D6+2, Armour Piercing, Close range, 3 shots, 1 Hand

Special When the Lady in White would be brought to 0 HP or below, she instead remains at 1 HP, but is stunned for a round – she has never had her armour broken before, and so the feeling of blood seeping into her suit and sight of the growing red stain shocks her. If this happens again in the future, she will again be stunned, as she is not used to the pain.

A short, lithe woman in a white bodysuit with a featureless white mask and snow white hair tied in a bun. When she speaks, the voice is clearly not her own, and slowly morphs to another voice over the course of her conversation. She carries a sheathed katana, kris, and holstered plasma pistol, and walks and talks with the utmost grace.

The Innocent

Mothership is very clearly based on Alien and Aliens. There are other inspirations, and you could use the game to run a non-horror game just fine (although at that point it might be better to use a different system like Traveller or Stars Without Number), but it's the Alien series, and especially the original two, that seem to be the main source.

The classes in Mothership are Teamster, Scientist, Android, and Marine. The only one that doesn't have a clear inspiration in Alien or Aliens is the Scientist, and even then scientists practically dominate the rosters of later installations like Prometheus or Alien: Covenant.

But there's one classic character left out: Newt.

Isn't she adorable? - From Aliens

Not everyone in the depths of space is there to kill or be killed. Well, everyone can be killed, but not everyone signed up to do a risky job. Sometimes, people find themselves in the strangest situations through no fault of their own, or tag along on the journeys of others with no intention of taking part in the difficult work.

But they are far from useless. Their optimism and presence grounds those around them to their humanity, reminds them of what they have a chance to be a part of. When facing inhuman monsters and impossible odds, amorality and nihilism cling to humans like a disease. If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back – and with the number of monsters the average adventurer fights, it's all too easy to become one themselves.

And innocent does not mean incapable. Where other characters have strong weapons and sharp minds to protect them, the Innocent must stand against their foes alone. They have their friends for sure, but to stand alongside larger-than-life characters without running in fear requires even more courage than them. And because everyone gains the same skills and stats each level, the Innocent will eventually be as strong as their allies.

The Innocent are orphaned kids picked up from lost colonies and the significant others of crewmembers. They're therapists and priests. They're artists and philosophers and free thinkers. They're all the people we think are useless but couldn't do without. When a Marine takes a life, he does it to protect them – when a Scientist makes a breakthrough, her knowledge will improve their lives. We are what we fight for, and we fight for them.

Stats: +5 Speed, -5 Combat

Saves: 30 Sanity / 60 Fear / 20 Body / 30 Armour

Stress: Spend a round to calm someone down and let them reroll a Fear save or panic check.

Skills: Rimwise, +3 Points

The Goddess of Lost Things

In a setting with explicitly supernatural elements, however rare and unknown, religion is not something so easily shed. Most sci-fi settings tend to push it to the background, making characters with faith often zealots or aliens (or both).

But in the depths of space, society diverges from the norm. Lost colonies can go decades or even centuries before being recontacted, and in that time, a small initial population can rapidly expand. New religions develop, as do new takes on old ones. It's human nature to push the boundaries of what is normal, and a predominantly atheist or agnostic civilization will only have its religious members gravitate to the fringes, fringes where communication delays and unnatural living conditions promote new ways of thinking.

From Netrunner - by Yog Joshi (the art, not the game)

While all but the most ancient and venerable religions tend to stick to their systems of origin, one faith – if you can even call it one – has spread far and wide. The Goddess of Lost Things, patron of travellers, explorers, and refugees.

Her worship does not demand that she be praised before any other. Indeed, she has no priests or priestesses, no holy books or commandments. Her temples are hostels, her prayers meant to inspire hope, not devotion. Countless people who have no doubt that she does not exist pray to her all the same.

The Goddess of Lost Things is worshipped by those far away from home. Travellers and explorers, but also refugees and, naturally, the homeless. She requires nothing, but offers subtle intervention in return for prayer and sacrifice. Many who "worship" her are completely atheist, only making the prayers for their own comfort. Having something to have hope in, even if you know for certain it's unreal, can make all the difference.

Her favour is purported to come in many forms. Simple things like safe journeys and interesting expeditions, or large things such as finding new homes and escaping hostile pursuers. Her most ardent worshipers are not wanderers, but rather the once homeless or displaced who, after praying to her, found a way out of their situations and feel the need to repay her through continued worship.

While they are her most zealous followers, her most common ones are travellers. Deep space explorers, Company couriers, and interstellar haulers offer her prayers and build shrines on their ships. They hope for safe, quick travels, but more than that, the religion offers them something to focus on on the long journeys between the stars.

For those with more faith, the closest thing to a structured church she has are the Temples to Lost Things. They tend to be found in and around starports and other places where travellers congregate. Each is more or less a glorified hostel, run by those faithful in the Goddess and designed to be as cheap as possible. All profits are put back into funding the temple or towards charities that help the homeless and displaced – those in great need of shelter, like refugees or runaways, are often allowed to stay for free.

At the centre of every temple is a Shrine of Lost Things. (The Goddess' followers aren't the best at naming things – with so many languages they encounter, fancy names are eschewed in favour of easily translatable ones.) Those who wish to curry her favour, or pay what they feel is a debt owed, leave things of value to themselves. It is generally believed that this has more to do with internal value than external measures like price.

By Moebius

As a result, her shrines are full of the strangest items. Stuffed animals and favourite books up to priceless antiques and life-saving weapons. Anything someone might consider valuable. But more than that, the most externally valuable things are taken, because the shrine's items are open for the public to claim. People who abuse this are refused the right (many temples impose a one-item-per-person rule), but over time, items of any degree of value are taken away, leaving only the eclectic and unusual behind.

Envolant, the Flying City of Hostages

What's the best way to show off your unimaginable wealth? One is to build a flying city.

I swear, you could take anything made by Moebius and turn it into a gameable concept.

But, even ignoring the colossal expenditure of energy and capital, both to build the city and to keep the agrav plates running, the idea just doesn't work. Whenever and wherever possible, people prefer to use ground-based vehicles. It's safer and more efficient. Agravs and garuda are for those flush with cash and in desperate need of speed and all-terrain movement. There's a reason 90% of agravs are military or industrial vehicles.

Cut the power and your flying car doesn't sputter as you pull over to the side of the road. It tumbles out of the sky, in spectacular and catastrophic failure. A floating city only exacerbates the situation. Failure doesn't kill you and anyone unlucky enough to be beneath you – it kills you, anyone beneath you, and everyone else in the city.

Of course the engine of industry that can fund the creation and maintenance of such a city has the means to keep it safe. But no one would be comfortable living on one, at least not in such numbers you could make it a meaningful settlement. There are plenty of floating houses out there, owned by executives on low-grav worlds. But there's only one floating city – Envolant, the city of hostages.

Initially, it was built as a kind of uber-folly, and much smaller than it is now. A couple of Company CEOs, friendly rivals, pooled their money to create a proof of concept for a merger between two of their subsidiaries, both manufacturers of agrav plating. They built it on a low-grav ocean world: Proteus, among the earliest human colonies, but by far the least successful. The local life is farmed and fished, but as far as breadbasket planets go, it's neither an exceptionally tasty, profitable, or productive source of food.

When Envolant was first finished, they struggled to get anyone to inhabit it. Getting someone to live on a floating town was tough enough, but on a backwater world so close to some of the oldest and most developed colonies, and above an endless expanse of water no less? They managed to get some Company artists, and a research lab, but much of the settlement went abandoned, beautiful architecture that was nothing but dead weight.

They were only a few months away from finally giving up and having it dismantled when it happened. They would have broke it down sooner if it wouldn't have looked bad – it was a folly, but a monument that stands for a day is no monument at all. But then one of the CEOs took a hostage from a rival, as assurance he wouldn't betray him. It was his only daughter her took, a child the man loved more than anything else in the world, and from a rival who was exceedingly likely to try to steal her back.

He couldn't keep her locked up in a cell, nor could he place her anywhere she could possibly be stolen from. Despite their hostility, he intended to keep the rival around for a while – if his daughter spent her time away in captivity, it raised the chances he would seek revenge in the future. The captor had to place her somewhere near the centre of human space, out of the way but close enough to keep an eye on her, somewhere she could roam free without having a means of escape.

Envolant was the answer. There was a community of moderately successful (which, on an interstellar scale, is incredibly successful by modern standards) artists, a safe, inoffensive, and interesting laboratory, and more beautiful sights than you can shake a stick at. And it was all impossible to leave without being monitored. Anything brought to the island had to pass through a rarely visited system, and head towards an otherwise meaningless part of a rarely visited planet, and directly land on a difficult to approach object.

From Studio Ghibli's Castle In The Sky

Envolant's new purpose was an instant success. The daughter found the city charming, and the rival could visit her in a relatively short journey compared to the trips to the deep space blacksites and deathworld prisons other hostages are dumped in. But at the same time, the city's precariousness constantly reminded both of them of the power its owners had: at any time, the city's engines could be dumped into the sea, bringing it down with it.

Today, the city has expanded and grown. It's no longer a town but rather a full-fledged city, if a small and densely packed one. It's full of artisans and luxuries, and is as much a resort for Company executives as it is a place to hold their hostages. But it does hold them. They number in the hundreds, celebrities likely to run away and the children of rival CEOs. The city keeps them happy and content, and unable to flee. Countless groups have tried to bust people out, and there are dozens of failures for every rare success.

But it is possible. Envolant wasn't built as a prison and wasn't really adapted to one. The fisheries of Proteus still regularly ship supplies in and food out. The Company, greedy as always, couldn't help but turn it into a vacation destination. You can't fool the scanners or blend in unnoticed – but you can disguise yourself, or slip away into the city's streets, or bribe the right people with the right price (which is harder than you'd think).

There are hundreds of hostages in the city. Some have been there for decades. In the complex network of the Company, there are entire worlds whose ownership hinges on who holds what hostage. Break the right person out, and you could change the fate of entire systems, or make allies of some of the most powerful people in the galaxy.

Just be careful you don't fall off. - from Castle In The Sky