Scenario 2 — The Spread

A ready-to-run single session — two to four hours — and the trade scenario of False Light: the one where the enemy is the ledger. Where Dead Reckoning taught the hardware, The Spread teaches the merchant loop (Chapter 28) — SCU cargo, the buy/sell spread roll, the gamble of jumping blind toward a market you can't see, and the mortgage that makes the whole thing necessary. No one fires a shot unless the crew starts it; the tension is entirely in committing money you might not get back.

Run it with the pregens aboard the Long Account (its Cargo Hold quality is what rates it for trade, Chapter 26) or your own crew and hull. Everything is built from rules already in the book; it runs GM-led, co-op, or solo (see the margin callouts).

The one-paragraph pitch. Vance's note is due and freight won't cover it, so the crew does what traders do — bets the hold. They buy a load cheap on an industrial world and jump blind toward a frontier market they think is hungry for it, knowing that no word travels faster than they do (Chapter 27). They're right that the market's desperate. They're wrong about what it wants — and there's a customs officer at the far fringe who's noticed the Long Account riding low.

Index§

• The situation behind the screen
• How the crew gets the job (the hook)
• Act I — Sourcing at Ironhold
• Act II — The Blind Leg and the Squeeze
• Act III — The Market That Moved
• The choice — who gets the cargo
• Wrapping up — rewards and threads
• Running it solo or GM-less
• GM cheat-sheet

The situation behind the screen§

The crew needs money the safe way won't make fast enough. Speculation is the gamble that can clear a note in a week — or sink them deeper into it.

Two facts, hidden behind the jump, set the trap that is the lesson:

• The obvious cargo is a glut. Generic manufactured goods are exactly what a frontier world usually wants — but Cinderfall's core-tap is failing (the Campaign Frame's hook), and a world worried about freezing isn't buying furniture and tools. The straightforward, low-risk load will sell at a loss there.
• The lucrative cargo is hot. What Cinderfall is desperate for is heat-exchanger parts and medicine — and the cheapest source of exchanger parts on Ironhold is a lot of Umbral-marked salvage that's restricted tech off the books. Carry it and the spread is a fortune; carry it past a fringe inspection and it's contraband (Chapter 28).

The crew can't know any of this from Ironhold — that's the whole game. They commit capital blind and learn the far price on arrival. A crew that reads the rumor before buying (Network, dock talk) can guess; a crew that just fills the hold finds out the hard way.

Faction beat. Cinderfall's heat crisis is Umbral's to fix or ignore, and the salvaged exchanger parts are Umbral's by old lease. Selling them into Cinderfall helps a freezing settlement and embarrasses Umbral (whose own parts these are) — which can tick Umbral's clock either way depending on how loudly the crew does it (Chapter 34).

How the crew gets the job (the hook)§

• The note's due. Vance's mortgage payment lands in days (Chapter 28), the savings won't cover it, and a freight contract pays too little, too slow. Speculation is the only math that works. (Default.)
• A tip with a catch. A broker — or Jinx's Velvet Account — swears Cinderfall is paying dear right now. (True. The broker just doesn't mention what it's paying for.)
• Carrying on. Fresh off Dead Reckoning, the corsair money bought one month, not a future; the next note is already coming.

Per-pregen hooks:

• Jinx (fixer) — the deal-maker; Sees the Strings and Silver Tongue make the spread rolls hers, and Reckless Pride tempts her to bet the whole hold.
• Echo (engineer) — she can tell at a glance that the cheap "scrap" exchanger parts are sound Umbral gear worth a fortune to the right world (an Engineering read).
• Bram (soldier) — Bureaucracy Trained makes him the unlikely hero of a customs table; paperwork, not a gun, gets the hold through.
• Ace (pilot) — Network Experienced finds the cargo and the buyer; Mistaken for Property makes any official room a risk.
• Edda (medic) — she's the one who understands what a failing tap does to the old and the young first; the medicine in the hold isn't just margin to her.

Act I — Sourcing at Ironhold§

Where: the company docks of Ironhold, an industrial mining world where manufactured goods are cheap and the air tastes of foundry. This act is the buy — and the decision the whole session turns on.

Read the market first (or pay for not). A Network test (Chapter 23) surfaces what's abundant here (manufactured goods, technology — buy at Advantage, Chapter 28) and the dock rumor that Cinderfall is "paying dear." A second, harder read — Network or Engineering to know what Cinderfall actually needs — is the difference between a glut and a fortune. Let the crew choose how much to learn before they commit; information is the cargo behind the cargo.

The buy (the spread roll). Each purchase is one Negotiate (Intellect) test — Jinx's Charm-and-Negotiate is built for it — read on the spread table (Chapter 28), with Advantage for buying where the good is abundant:

Three loads are on offer, and the crew picks (the Long Account holds 30–100 SCU, Chapter 28):

• Generic manufactured goods (base Cr5,000/SCU). Safe to buy, glutted at Cinderfall — the trap for a crew that doesn't read the market.
• Medicine & pharmaceuticals (base Cr12,000/SCU). Expensive to buy, genuinely wanted everywhere a tap is failing — solid, legal, lower margin.
• Salvaged exchanger parts — Umbral-marked, restricted (priced as technology, base Cr10,000/SCU, but cheap here as "scrap"). The fortune, and the contraband. Buying it is a quiet Network/Negotiate deal in a back dock.

The cost of doing business. Whatever they fill, remind them what's riding: overhead of Cr5,000–10,000/month and Vance's Cr10,000–15,000 note (Chapter 28). Speculation ties up more credits than a young crew owns — they may buy only a few SCU on spec and fill the rest with freight (Cr1,000/SCU/jump, no price risk) to cover the bills. That mixed hold is the trader's arc (Chapter 28).

🎲 Running it solo. The far market is exactly what the Oracle and the toolkit are for. Don't pre-decide Cinderfall's demand — ask on arrival. Here, just bank your expectation: "Cinderfall wants manufactured goods" feels Likely from Ironhold, and Act III will test it. Buying blind on a guess is the game.

Act II — The Blind Leg and the Squeeze§

Where: one week of jumpspace, then the Cinderfall fringe and the inspection waiting there. This is the intrigue beat — a problem with no combat solution.

The jump runs as Chapter 27 (a clean plot needs no roll for a Trained navigator; the corridor here is honest, unlike Dead Reckoning's). The week is downtime — and the hard truth of the trade: the crew can't call ahead to check the price, and can't be warned what's changed. Whatever Cinderfall has become, they're committed.

The squeeze at the fringe. Every jump ends at the system fringe, where customs and pickets wait (Chapter 27). Cinderfall's inspectors are stretched and on the take, and a free trader riding low draws a boarding-and-manifest check. How the crew handles it depends on the hold:

• Clean cargo (generic goods, medicine): a Bureaucracy test (8+) for the papers — Bram's hour — or a small bribe (Cr50–200, Chapter 28). Routine.
• Hot cargo (the Umbral-marked parts): now it's a real scene. Deceive (a cover story), a forged manifest (Chapter 28), or a bribe to a real official (Cr500–2,000) — an opposed or extended contest (Chapter 5) against an inspector who can smell a low-riding hull. Get caught and the cargo is seized, fines bite, and the Long Account earns the Marked drawback (Chapter 26). Slip it and the fortune is still alive.

The inspector is a person, not a wall — they can be charmed, bought, out-papered, or appealed to (a settlement is freezing; that medicine matters). Reward the crew that reads them. Violence here is a disaster: it turns a fine into a manhunt across a sector they can't outrun.

🎲 Running it solo. Frame the inspector's read as an Oracle question: "Does the inspector buy the manifest?" — likelihood set by the cover (Likely if clean and papered, Unlikely if hot and thin). A No, but… is an opening (they'll look away for a price); a No, and… (1-1) is the hold seized and the Account Marked. Let the answer stand (Chapter 42).

Act III — The Market That Moved§

Where: Cinderfall's port, where the rumor the crew bought on turns out to be a week stale and a world's worth of wrong. This is the sell — and the gamble's reckoning.

The market isn't what they were told. Cinderfall's core-tap is failing; the settlement is rationing heat and bracing for worse (the frame's hook). So:

• Generic manufactured goods are a glut — sell at Disadvantage (Chapter 28). The safe load loses money. This is the lesson landing: the far price is never the near price.
• Medicine sells at Advantage — wanted, fairly paid. The careful play clears a decent margin.
• The exchanger parts are what the world is desperate for — sell at Advantage, and a buyer will pay over the odds. The fortune, if it made it through customs.

The sell (the spread roll). Each sale is a Negotiate test on the spread table, supply/demand Advantage/Disadvantage applied:

A good leg (buy 85% → sell 120%) clears about 35% of base per SCU; a great one (70% → 140%) clears 70%; the glutted load can lose money. Run the big sale as an opposed or extended Negotiate (Chapter 5) against the buyer — a settlement quartermaster who's desperate but broke, or a profiteering broker who's flush but cold.

The complication (the catch — Chapter 38). A rival crew is one jump ahead and undercutting, or already holds the buyer's ear (Chapter 35). The crew can outbid, out-charm, expose them, or partner — a second front for the negotiators, and a Rival made or unmade for the campaign.

The choice — who gets the cargo§

When the exchanger parts (or the medicine) are in hand and a freezing world needs them, the crew chooses who they sell to — and it's a real choice, because the spread isn't the only thing on the table:

1. The settlement, at a fair price. Less coin than a profiteer would pay, but the gratitude of a community (worth more than the coin, Chapter 38), a warm port for next time, and Umbral embarrassed that strangers fixed what its lease should have. The frame remembers.
2. The broker, for the maximum spread. Top credit, paid clean — and the broker will ration those parts back to the settlement at a markup. Cold margin, colder conscience, and a world that learns who the Account sold to.
3. Hold for a better port. Refuse both, jump the cargo on toward a market that might pay more — the purest speculation, betting the hold again against another blind market and another month of the note.

Let the players decide; change the Coldwake Reach to match and seed a rumor (Chapter 33).

Wrapping up — rewards and threads§

The payday — or the loss. Total the spread: (sell − buy) × SCU, less overhead and the note. A strong run clears a dangerous-job purse or better (Cr5,000–15,000+, Chapter 28) and the note is met with room to spare; a botched read — glutted goods, a customs seizure — and the crew is deeper in debt, which is its own next adventure. That swing is the whole point of the system; let it land honestly.

Advancement (Chapter 20). Mark any skill failed at Trained+ — a blown Negotiate, a customs Bureaucracy gone wrong — and resolve at session end. +1 XP for the session; invoked Banes (Jinx's Reckless Pride, Ace's Mistaken for Property) earn theirs.

Threads to pull next:

• Cinderfall's failing tap is a crisis, not a transaction — a settlement, an absentee Umbral lease, and a clock (a natural home for the intrigue scenario the set defers).
• The rival crew is now a Rival on the board (Chapter 35), one port ahead or one behind.
• The note bought a month. It always does. Vance's clock keeps ticking (the faction turn), and the hold is empty again.

Running it solo or GM-less§

Trade is the most Oracle-friendly mode in the book, because its central fact — you can't see the far market — is exactly what the Oracle and the Part IX generators answer (Chapters 43–44):

• Don't pre-decide the far price. Bank your expectation at Ironhold, then on arrival ask the Oracle what the market became ("Is Cinderfall glutted on manufactured goods?" — Likely, given a failing tap). The spread table does the rest; the dice are the market.
• Run the inspector and the buyer by intent. They never roll against you; you roll your crew's Negotiate, Deceive, or Bureaucracy, and ask the Oracle when their disposition is genuinely open. A spark throws in the rival crew or a second inspection.
• Keep the ledger as a thread. The note's due date, the rival, your standing with Umbral and the settlement — log them (Appendix A4), and run the faction turn across the jump home.

GM cheat-sheet§