LAST_MARCHES (Open-Table Extraction Horror Campaign Frame for Mothership)

    Whenever they catch you, they will kill you. 
    But first they must catch you.
    - Richard Adams, Watership Down.

The Evacuation Fleet bleeds out into the dark. Flee the million teeth of a viciously automated corporate humanity, always at your heels. Bodies and minds entangled with computer systems, thrashing and chattering. 

Drop into hazardous sites to gather resources, rescue employees, and salvage equipment. Complete operations before the Recovery Window passes forever. Move fast or risk being left behind, as the brittle shells of the Fleet advance into the shadows.

Time passes in real time. The crew has a limited time to extract before it's impossible to rendezvous with the Fleet and they're stranded at the worksite. They'll have a little less time than the session is scheduled for, to allow for wrap-up; either downtime within the Fleet or their fate in the worksite, depending on whether they can extract.

This is an experimental campaign framework for running an open-table, West Marches-inspired Mothership campaign, including d10 mission types, a few ship names, suggestions for consequences and advancement, and a carnivorous, unfeeling corporate ecosystem. 

Fragile History

The Company turned inward, consuming itself. An endless material hunger, exponentially magnified by runaway automation, set loose without consciousness. Some few employees managed to flee. As the collapse expands outward, the Company feeds on everything, stripping planets barren, repurposing humans and material as it spreads. Almost all of you belonged to the Company once. And if you are not fast, clever, and lucky, you will belong to it again.

Still, out here on the Rim, you are an insistent flicker. You cannot be the only ones. And there are others you can lift up and carry with you, before a great black wave crashes down. Waste nothing. You will be like a matchstick. Hold your humanity tight, and your life lightly. Flash briefly, and begin something much larger than yourself. Keep the fire alive a little longer and maybe your children's children will see peace beyond the reach of the Company. 

The work is beyond the confines of your body. Breathe and begin.

Transport Logistics

• Dropship: Dropship remains in holding pattern, lands at a secure LZ, or docks at a working airlock. Crew deployed via fast-rope or landing ramp. Extract via hoist or at valid LZ.
• Coffin-Lander: Used if Fleet dropships are damaged or destroyed. Must return to the lander location to return to the Fleet. Vulnerable to damage and extreme weather.
• Escape Pod: High tempo or last-ditch operations. Crew extracted via scheduled dropship at a designated location, or knowingly abandoned in the case of Data Raids and Gatecrashing. Classed as "NO_RETURN."

Critical Objectives (d10)

1. Data Raid (DARA): Infiltrate secure location to collect an offline data source. Provides information about upcoming locations to future crews, reveals Company secrets, may include production schematics for special gear.
2. Surplus Collection (S-COL): Obtain resources, supplies, and equipment from the site. Crew deploys with robotic Mules and Cargo Hooks for mid-operation dropship collection. Essential surplus includes food, fuel, and medicine. Special surplus like weapons, equipment, and clothing may be found and assigned by future crews.
3. Human Asset Recovery Mission (HARM): Secure Human Asset(s) from the site. Researchers, activists, employees, technicians, and so on. Ensure safety during transport, and watch out for corporate infiltrators.
4. Route Clearance Operation (RCO / "Gatecrashing"): Neutralize automated installations preventing Fleet passage, including SOMs (Surface-to-Orbit Munitions), Company-networked radar stations, and automated blockade fleets.
5. Material Asset Denial (MAD): Destroy materials and facilities to prevent successful assimilation by the following swarm. Find ways to wreck and destroy facility-scale targets like oil rigs, reactors, and warehouses.
6. Orbital Refueling Evolution (ORE): Bypass security so the Fleet can siphon proprietary fuel from Company refueling stations. Generally occupied by hostile bioforms, automated hunter-killer systems, and desperate survivors.
7. Salvage Operations (SALVOPS): Work to disassemble derelict vessels for parts, materials, and even full modules. Of course, ships are rarely abandoned for pleasant reasons, and disrepair introduces all kinds of environmental hazards, as systems break down.
8. Luxury Extraction Run (LUXRUN): Collect media and other luxuries for trading, morale, and stress relief from abandoned ships and stations. Breach secure environments for higher rewards.
9. Surface Research Operation (SRO): Fleet scientists conduct studies and gather samples on a planetary surface to further internal research. Hazards and impacts vary. But the search matters.
10. System Infiltration (SYS-INFIL): Get into a secure system undetected. Move ahead of the fleet to strike early-warning sites, destroy interception vessels, and invade communication relays to spoof your signature. Grants safe access to a system. Failure means security descends.

Possible Consequences

IF: Crew reaches Extract.
THEN: Recover all crew, materials, data, and intel. Downtime in the Fleet.

IF: Crew fails to reach Extract.
THEN: Crew lost. Data and intel recovered. Play out an epilogue.

IF: Dropship destroyed. 
THEN: Crew recovery fails. May still collect data and intel.

IF: All dropships destroyed.
THEN: Ship resorts to using Coffin Landers. Good luck.

IF: Ship destroyed.
THEN: Crew aboard have a 30% chance of survival and rescue. Roll up another ship to be the focus of the campaign.

IF: Several ships destroyed.
THEN: Fleet cannot sustain losses, and scatters into the dark, or starves.

IF: Crew fails to collect food.
THEN: Fleet begins to starve. +2 Stress.

IF: Crew fails to collect medicine.
THEN: Disease begins to spread. Healing limited.

IF: Crew fails to collect fuel.
THEN: the Company catches up. Next session is a ship encounter.

IF: Crew fails to collect Human Assets.
THEN: In time, they are overwhelmed and consumed by the Company.

IF: Crew fails to collect data and intel.
THEN: Future crews start with minimal deployment info.

IF: Crew collects substantial data and intel.
THEN: Learn about the world. The next crew starts with much more info. 

Ship Names

• UCV-13 Bad Odds
• DSRV-1048 Ozymandias
• HDSV-434 Wellspring of Solvency
• LRCV-215 Harlequin
• HDSV-591 Abyssal King
• PTV-205 Boiled Alive
• HCTV-52 All Shall Eat Money

Advancement, Individual and Collective

• Supplies and equipment can be recovered from the operation to be added to Ship Storage.
• Crews are given an allotment of Requisition Credits to request supplies and equipment from The Quartermaster, a squirming, grublike android that descends from the ship’s hold.
• Up to 4 items may be stashed in a Personal Locker. Issued supplies and equipment are returned to Ship Storage after use. Items in a Personal Locker are turned over to the Fleet in the event of death.
• There may be opportunities to purchase personal equipment from Stations and Outposts, at the cost of standard credits, if you have any. This may depend on the chosen route through a Jump Cluster.
• Your ship offers a place to Rest, though probably cramped, dirty, and worn. High Morale provides + on rest saves, and is created by having plenty of food or welcome entertainment. Low Morale incurs - on rest saves, and is caused by low supplies, poor food, injury, death, and other stressors.
• Training is largely unavailable.
• Medical Care is provided by the Fleet, but limited by available onboard medical facilities and supplies, especially for critical or intensive treatment.
• High Score provides an abstract measure of reputation within the Fleet. Veterans are rare, and respected ... or feared.
• Each Operation will generally advance the Fleet within a Jump Cluster, taking them farther from the ever-advancing reach of the Company, and changing which operations will be available to the next Crew.

The Company

Executive

I:80 C:20 Tail Lash 3d10 DMG W:2(20) Special: Body Save against injection. On a failure, heal D10 and reduce SPD by 2D10.

Many painfully thin, multi-jointed limbs extend from a slender body clad in clinging formal attire. Cortex receives computer-controlled flood of reward neurotransmitters when it detects organisms suffering and in pain. Six-fingered hands ending in needled fingernails, hooked to narcotic organs. Bristled, lashing tail with splinter of razor blades at the end. It leads corporate divisions from the nexus of a consumed transport ship.

Manager

I:30 C:35 Mug Bash 1d10 DMG W:3(20) AP:3 Special: Calls 1D10 Representatives.

Towering, many-eyed headstalk, swaying above clustered networking components, in still-human hands are clutched a clipboard and coffee mug. Surrounded at all times by Representatives. Taps into communication frequencies and detects biosignatures to guide its affiliates towards leads. Howls at an earsplitting pitch when it is threatened, calling for aid.

Representative

I:20 C:40 Hit 1d10 DMG or Bite 2d10 DMG. W:2(10) Special: 20% chance to continue fighting for D5 rounds when killed.

Once human, but slowly stripped away, agonizingly replaced, until the body collapsed around fake organs, body boosters, reinforced polymer bones. They needed the changes to survive their job, but each surgery and modification drove up their debt, hurling escape further out of reach. Not even death is release. Most Representatives are corpses, enervated by an artificial brainstem. Others are desperate, apologetic. It's not personal. They're just trying to get out, and the Company has promised. It's promised. It.

Talkboxes

I: 20 C:30 Speaker +1 Stress. Special: Reports position to the Company.

Buzz on recessed propellers, silicone mouthpiece blabbering the latest Company offers, microphone pricked up for the slightest sign of customers. Transmits all audio back to other Company resources. Swarm, flickering and pitching, around anyone they find.

Harvestmouth

I:10 C:20 Mouthparts 3d10 DMG W:1(100) Special: Body Save or swallowed (2D10 DMG per round unless cut free)

Gulping, monkfish-like, heap of synthetic flesh, moves on rows of undulating pseudopods, weeping industrial lubricant, waiting to collect resources. Fed by Representatives, which solemnly load its waiting maw with gathered resources, biomass, equipment, and potential new hires. Extracted via Skycrane in batches, with a barbed hook through the fleshy crown of its head. 

Feeder

I:15 C:20 Feeding Hood 2d10 DMG W:2(20) Special: Projectile vomits pool of food and digestive acid. [-] Speed checks to cross.

Loaded up with ration-mix. Overloaded, maybe. Critically miscalibrated for the human body. Stumbles along on four stubby legs. Grabs and feeds through a flapping psuedoflesh hood. But it’s too much. Tissue splits. Organ walls rupture. Airways plug with regurgitated regulation porridge. Smell of protein and sugar hanging around it like a benediction. 

Wirebeast

I:60 C:80 Bite 2d10, then Cut 4d10. W:2(60) AP:5 Special: Overrides electrical system to falsify location, confuse targets.

Strands hang braided and whiplike from its crackling titanium vertebral column, the ragged edge of its jaw, where reciprocating saw teeth jut. Four digitigrade legs, ending in grippy rubber pads. Eyeless. Seeks by sound and lidar until it finds its prey, seizes them between pneumatic jaws, and begins to cut. Deployed via scattered drop-pods in response to threats to Company personnel, or in advance of a hostile takeover. Lie dormant, curled small and nest-like when not in use. Equipped with a diverse set of cable interfaces for hooking into (and destroying) electrical systems.

Growfast

If Exposed: Body Save or 2d10 DMG.

Terraforming bioform, consumes a wide variety of gasses and metabolizes into oxygen. Spreads rapidly, given fuel, developing a bubbled exterior over a stringy, milky interior. Obviously, an abundance of oxygen makes spaces exquisitely volatile. Strips any available nutrients from the environment. Normally, these would be replaced by imported artificial fertilizers. Renders environments wholly fallow if not. 

Dupe

I:15 C:35 Plastic Hands 2d10 W:2 Special: [-] on Fear Saves nearby. Appears human at a distance.

Cheap copy of a human being, plastic face, plastic eyes, overly smooth motion. Sent in the opening wave as a cheap communicator, able to work in extreme environments for hours, its permanent smile makes is dissonant against its incredible capacity for pitiless hands-on violence. Unfeeling and unthinking. Draws its language from a supply of stolen phrases. Sometimes programmed to hide themselves in local clothing, keeping their frozen faces low. Whine of cooling fans. Slow leaking pseudomilk. Footsteps too heavy for their size.

Extractor

I:10 C:20 GPMG Turret 4d10 DMG W:3(50) AP:20 Special: Stops moving and deploys 1d10 Dupes.

 

Slow-moving industrial platform, spooled with pulsing biomechanical tubules across a scraped and pitted carapace. Low-hanging reek of ethyl mercaptan off the exhaust. Automated GPMG turrets swivel at the corners. Tracks churn through exoplanetary mud. Dupes toil in the belly, maintaining engines, drilling equipment, and material storage tanks. Deployed and extracted by Skycranes which struggle slightly to haul their bulk aloft. Feed from Harvestmouths with a segmented, sucking nozzle. Carries two Bioloaders in semi-spherical release bays. Sacks of material slurry hang swollen on the flanks.

Bioloader

I:15 C:25 Lift Appendage 4d10. W:4(30) AP:5 Special: Hurls a heavy object. Speed check or 1d10 DMG and trapped beneath.

Beast of burden, all entwined muscle and hydraulics. Graviportal legs beneath a sloping torso, huge arms, ridged hands for lifting, loading, and throwing. Massive protective helmet innscribed with the Company Logo, a great dome of steel encases its heavy skull and computer guidance system. Remotely operated by networked Managers, and autonomously completes repetitive patterns, sensing with a set of tiny, inset eyes beneath the lower rim of its helmet.

Skycrane

I:20 C:40 Representative with Pulse Rifle 3d10 DMG W:3(30) AP:30 Special: Deploys transport can containing 1d10 Dupes or a Wirebeast, then flees.

Four industrial landing legs, a forest of hanging chains and hooks, roaring landing engines, and a wailing siren announcing its arrival, haloed by hard-burning worklights and a rain of illumination flares. Guided in to land and extract by Representatives behind thick polycarbonate portholes on the bridge. Used to deploy Company entities from transport cans, and Harvestmouths dangling on hooks.