False Light — a light campaign frame

A campaign set in the Coldwake Reach — a frontier sector of the Shore.

A frame, not a campaign: a small seeded sector and the three powers that move it, enough to string the three scenarios beside this file into a continuing game. It teaches the one thing a single adventure can't — the faction turn (Chapter 34), learned by being run across sessions. Everything here is built from the rulebook's own generators (Chapters 34, 37, 38) and the GM record sheets (Appendix A4); nothing is a new rule.

False Light picks up directly after The Cold Lantern (Chapter 36), and it does so without assuming which of that adventure's three endings happened (see Carrying the Lantern forward, below). If your table hasn't played The Cold Lantern, the sector still stands alone — it just loses a few callbacks.

The premise in a paragraph. A frontier sector of four worlds a jump apart, warmed by a dying core-tap and watched by a salvage firm that has learned not to wait for ships to die. GANYMEDE Salvage is quietly moving jump-beacons to strand ships near a derelict graveyard — manufacturing the wrecks it then breaks. The Vance dock authority taxes every hull at the home port and holds the crew's mortgage. Umbral Coring & Heat is the absentee landlord the crew may already have shamed or buried at the Lantern. The crew flies the Long Account (Chapter 25), one missed note from losing it, and the next job is always necessary.

Index§

• The crew and the ship
• The sector — four systems
• The three powers
• The faction turn — running the Coldwake Reach between sessions
• How the scenarios chain
• Carrying the Lantern forward (any ending)
• Pre-filled record sheets (Appendix A4)

The crew and the ship§

False Light assumes the cast and hull the rest of the book already flies: the five pregenerated Wanderers (Appendix A6) crewing the Long Account — the mortgaged TL 12 free trader from the Chapter 25 ship fight: Armor 24, one standard 8D turret, Cargo Hold and Atmospheric. Use your own crew and ship freely; only two things need to be true for the frame to bite:

• The hull is mortgaged. The note belongs to the Vance dock authority (below), comes due monthly (reckon Cr10,000–15,000 for an S3 starship, Chapter 28), and is the engine that makes every job necessary. Miss enough and Vance repossesses.
• The crew has a reason to be in the Coldwake Reach — they ended The Cold Lantern here, or drifted in broke, or took a run that stranded them (Scenario 1 does exactly that).

The sector — four systems§

A sector is a handful of systems and the factions whose reach spans them (Chapter 37). Sketch all four now; develop each on its own A4 record when the crew turns toward it. The systems sit roughly a jump apart — one parsec, one week (Chapter 27).

Names follow the Chapter 37 conventions and deliberately sit beside the six anchor worlds of Chapter 30 (the Shoals of Providence), not on top of them, so nothing here contradicts that map. Add a fifth and sixth system as names on the chart whenever the crew jumps somewhere new (Chapter 37 builds one in minutes).

The three powers§

Three light trackers, each an agenda, a reach, and an influence clock the GM moves on the faction turn (Chapter 34). The clock is the only number, and the players never roll against it — they act in the fiction and the GM ticks.

GANYMEDE Salvage — the vulture that stopped waiting§

The salvage firm from The Cold Lantern, now running a wider and darker operation across the Coldwake Reach.

• Agenda: own the sector's salvage — and stop waiting for ships to die. GANYMEDE is moving jump-beacons to scatter ships into misjumps near Greywell, then breaking the wrecks it manufactures.
• Reach & methods: deniability, patience, money; a breaking-ship parked off Greywell; hired raiders working the strand zone; Sool Vantongue (if they survived the Lantern) as the quiet hand.
• Influence clock (6): fills as the beacon scheme spreads and the wrecks pile up. When it fills, GANYMEDE effectively controls the Coldwake Reach's salvage and routes, and a stranding can happen to anyone — including the crew. Starting fill is set by Carrying the Lantern forward, below.
• Standing toward the crew: Rival, hardening to Enemy as they interfere. GANYMEDE doesn't forget.
• Pressure point: the tampered beacons — physical evidence the wrecks are made, not found. Surface it and the firm's deniability collapses.

The Vance dock authority — the landlord with the note§

The fresh power, a dynasty that runs the home dock by law and debt (the model is the worked example in Chapter 34).

• Agenda: tax every hull that berths at Coldwake and call in the notes it holds — including the Long Account's mortgage — tightening its grip on the only real port for a jump in any direction.
• Reach & methods: law, contracts, berthing fees, and the patience of a creditor; the harbormaster and the magistrate are theirs.
• Influence clock (4): fills as fees rise and debtors fall behind. When it fills, Vance owns the dock outright and the crew's note is one bad month from collection.
• Standing toward the crew: Contact — a creditor, transactional, neither friend nor foe until pushed.
• Pressure point: a contested succession in the family, and any rival who would undercut the fees (a free port, a second dock, Greatpaw-style runners). Vance cannot afford to look weak.

Umbral Coring & Heat — the absent landlord§

The heat-lease holder from The Cold Lantern — patron and threat at once, its posture set by how that adventure ended.

• Agenda: hold its frontier heat-leases and recoup. Whether it was shamed into a real repair or quietly foreclosed at the Lantern, Umbral now wants the Coldwake Reach's core-tap worlds (Coldwake, Cinderfall) earning again — and its name out of the criminal-sabotage story.
• Reach & methods: law, debt, the leases that keep frontier worlds from freezing; a field rep who is finally answering calls.
• Influence clock (4): fills as it consolidates its leases and buries the bad press. When it fills, Umbral is the closest thing the Coldwake Reach has to law — patron to those it favors, foreclosure to those it doesn't.
• Standing toward the crew: Contact, warm or cold per the Lantern's ending; the faction the crew can most readily flip with evidence (Chapter 36).
• Pressure point: evidence and reputation — the same lever that worked at the Lantern. Umbral will do the right thing only when the wrong thing costs more.

The faction turn — running the Coldwake Reach between sessions§

Between sessions, or across a jump week when the crew is sealed away (Chapters 27, 34), spend a few minutes moving each power the crew didn't hold in check (the Appendix A4 checklist):

1. Did the crew help, serve, or ignore the agenda? → tick the clock forward one (two if they served it directly).
2. Did the crew or a rival power hinder it? → tick it back, or stall it.
3. Touched by nothing? → it still creeps forward one — ambition doesn't sleep.
4. Clock filled? → resolve the agenda, change the sector to match, set the next one, and seed the result into a rumor (Chapter 33) the crew discovers on arrival.

The crew learns what moved only when they make port and find it already done — no word outruns a ship (Chapter 27). That lag is the gift: it lets consequences land that couldn't have been prevented. A worked beat: the crew exposes a moved beacon (Scenario 1) → GANYMEDE's clock ticks back, but off-screen Vance leans on the harbormaster and ticks forward; the crew jumps home to find berthing doubled and a fresh stranding rumored off Greywell — the next two jobs, already waiting.

How the scenarios chain§

The three scenarios share one seeded sector and one through-line — GANYMEDE's manufactured wrecks — but play in any order and stand alone. The natural spine:

• Scenario 1 — Dead Reckoning (ships / jump / space combat). A run out of Coldwake is misjumped by a moved beacon into an ambush off Greywell. Surviving it hands the crew a corsair wreck and the evidence that the stranding was deliberate. Seeds GANYMEDE's whole operation and puts Greywell on the chart.
• Scenario 2 — The Spread (trade). With Vance's note due, the crew gambles a hold of cargo Coldwake→Ironhold→Cinderfall, blind to the far market and squeezed at customs. The mortgage is the clock; the merchant loop is the lesson.
• Scenario 3 — Greywell (salvage, fullest solo treatment). A derelict in the graveyard — a manufactured wreck, the moved beacon platform from Scenario 1, or (if it died at the Lantern) the cold hulk of the Cold Lantern itself — to be stripped before a rival arrives, through vacuum, structural collapse, and a dark that isn't as dead as it looks.

Each scenario advances or exposes a clock, so running the set is the campaign: the faction turn does the rest.

Onward (optional). The Greywell graveyard is also a doorway. If your table wants to keep flying past the Coldwake Reach, one of its wrecks holds a sealed courier drone carrying something a long-armed buyer will kill to bury — the hook into Dead Air (WC02), the bridge campaign that carries a crew out of this sector and on toward the next. Entirely skippable; False Light stands complete on its own.

A note to borrow (optional, atmosphere only). Long before any of that, the Reach is thick with dead channels — old automated relays and lost beacons still whispering into the dark, last words from people who didn't make it. It's just the sound of a sunless frontier, and none of it is the buyer's prize. But a GM pointing toward the larger saga can let one ghost-signal hang a beat too long, unanswered — the note the whole arc is tuned to, heard faint and early. Pure mood; the crew can't chase it, and nothing here depends on it.

Carrying the Lantern forward (any ending)§

The Cold Lantern (Chapter 36) ends three honest ways. Read your table's ending across, set the starting clocks, and continue — nothing else in the frame changes.

Whatever the ending, have the table note (or read from their Cold Lantern wrap-up) where they stand with each power — that standing is what the faction turn reads from. Sool Vantongue lives or dies per your table; if dead, a successor runs GANYMEDE's strand-and-break operation with the same patience.

Pre-filled record sheets (Appendix A4)§

Ready to run. Copy into your A4 sheets, or use as-is.

SECTOR: The Coldwake Reach        The "now" (era): Settling — a working frontier

Systems (name — one-line character):
  • Coldwake — dead gas-giant moon + the Cold Lantern hab-ring; home port; Vance runs the dock
  • Ironhold — industrial mining world; cheap manufactured goods; the firm is being bought
  • Cinderfall — frontier core-tap world; a tap overdue to fail; market for manufactured goods
  • Greywell — a graveyard of derelicts at the sector's edge; the wrecks are too fresh

Factions in play (name → Ch 34 tracker):
  • GANYMEDE Salvage — moving beacons to manufacture wrecks (clock 6)
  • Vance dock authority — tax every hull, call the notes (clock 4)
  • Umbral Coring & Heat — hold the heat-leases, bury the bad press (clock 4)

Open threads / rumors running:
  • A beacon's been moved; ships are arriving where they shouldn't (Ch 33)
  • A breaking-ship sits off Greywell, waiting for traffic that doesn't usually come
  • Berthing fees at Coldwake creep up every time the crew makes port

FACTION: GANYMEDE Salvage
  Kind: A salvage consortium racing rivals to the wrecks (Ch 34)
  Agenda: Own the sector's salvage — move beacons to strand ships near Greywell and break them
  Reach & methods: Deniability, patience, money; a breaking-ship off Greywell; hired raiders; Sool Vantongue
  Pressure point: The tampered beacons — proof the wrecks are made, not found
  Standing toward the crew:  Rival  (→ Enemy as they interfere)
  Influence clock (6):  [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]   (start per the Lantern's ending)
  When it fills → GANYMEDE controls the Coldwake Reach's salvage and routes. New agenda: tax the routes outright.

FACTION: Vance dock authority
  Kind: A dynasty that holds the dock by law and debt (Ch 34)
  Agenda: Tax every hull at Coldwake and call in its notes — including the Long Account's
  Reach & methods: Law, contracts, berthing fees, a creditor's patience; the harbormaster and magistrate
  Pressure point: A contested succession; any rival who'd undercut the fees
  Standing toward the crew:  Contact  (a creditor)
  Influence clock (4):  [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
  When it fills → Vance owns the dock; the crew's note is one bad month from collection. New agenda: a second port.

FACTION: Umbral Coring & Heat
  Kind: A terraforming/heat combine that warms frontier worlds (Ch 34)
  Agenda: Hold its heat-leases, get the core-tap worlds earning, bury the sabotage story
  Reach & methods: Law, debt, the leases that keep worlds from freezing; a field rep now answering calls
  Pressure point: Evidence and reputation — the lever that worked at the Lantern
  Standing toward the crew:  Contact  (warm/cold per the Lantern's ending)
  Influence clock (4):  [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
  When it fills → Umbral is the Coldwake Reach's nearest thing to law: patron or foreclosure. New agenda: absorb a rival lease.