Scenario Wave — Trade & Pressure
The second wave foregrounds the merchant loop (Chapter 28) and the financial pressure that makes the next job necessary — the mortgage, the rebuild's hunger for credits and parts (03a), and the slow squeeze of the powers who hold the crew's debts (file 02). These are the scenarios where the enemy is the ledger, and a shot fired usually means something went wrong. Three lean, drop-in situations; run them when the note bites or the ark needs feeding. Each closes with a solo/co-op note (Chapters 42–45). Nothing here is a new rule.
Index§
6.1 Buying Blind§
The merchant loop (Chapters 27, 28).
Brightspan's cargo ring is a wall of containers and a hundred brokers shouting prices that are already out of date somewhere. You have a hold to fill, a jump to make, and no way to know what the far market will pay until you're standing in it.
The pitch. With credits short and the rebuild hungry, the crew gambles a hold on speculation: buy a cargo blind at Brightspan, jump a week toward a market they can't see, and find on arrival that the price has moved — because no word outran them (Chapter 27). The profit is real, and so is the risk of a hold full of goods nobody wants.
How it reaches the crew. The rebuild needs funding (03a); a broker at Brightspan (file 01) offers a speculative lot at a tempting price. The note is due (6.3), so the run is necessary.
The situation. Standard merchant play (Chapter 28): the crew buys SCU of cargo on a spread roll (Negotiate, with Advantage or Disadvantage from supply and demand), jumps, and sells into whatever the far market has become. The catch is the one Chapter 28 builds in — the market shifted, a rival dumped the same goods, or a customs regime at the destination fringe wants its cut (Chapter 27).
Running it.
- Source and buy (Chapter 28). A Network to find the lot, a Negotiate spread roll to buy well. Manufactured goods at Brightspan sell on the frontier; food from Farcradle sells anywhere hungry.
- The blind jump (Chapter 27). A week sealed away; run the faction turn (file 09) and let the market drift.
- Arrival and the squeeze. Sell into the changed market (a second Negotiate spread roll), and handle the fringe: a customs inspection the crew can pass with Bureaucracy, slip with Deceive, or pay off (Chapter 28). The job's profit is whatever survives all three.
Resolutions. A clean spread funds a restoration project (03a); a blown spread leaves the crew holding cargo and still owing the note (a deeper hole, and a reason to take the next job in 6.3); a seized cargo at customs makes an enemy of whoever tipped them off (a thread, Chapter 35).
What it advances. The rebuild economy (03a); a Contact or Rival among brokers and customs (Chapter 35); the note clock, eased or tightened.
Solo/GM-less. Roll the spread and the market shift straight off Chapter 28; Oracle the customs posture — are they tipped off? (unlikely, unless a faction's clock says otherwise). The merchant loop is dice-driven by design and needs no GM.
6.2 Feeding the Ark§
Trade as lifeline; a no-combat squeeze (Chapters 28, 35).
Farcradle's growers meet you in a low, warm hall that smells of soil and machine oil. They have heard what you are asking — food enough for a city that isn't awake yet — and they are not saying no. They are saying: and what will you do for us?
The pitch. The crew cannot wake the Concord's thousands faster than they can feed them (the Woken track gates on it, 03a). Farcradle can grow that food — but its own harvest is faltering and a combine is leaning on its growers to sell their seed-stock. The crew needs a supply contract, and they'll only get it by solving the growers' problem first.
How it reaches the crew. The Woken project stalls for lack of food; Farcradle is the answer (file 01). Ada Sandoval or the crew's own quartermaster names the need.
The situation. The growers will contract gladly — they need the custom — but they are one bad season and one combine from losing everything. The combine (a Helios-aligned agri-interest, or roll a fresh faction, Chapter 34) is pressing them to sell the seed-stock that is their independence. Help the growers hold, and the crew has a breadbasket; ignore it, and the combine takes Farcradle and sets the price of the ark's bread.
Running it.
- The contract (Chapter 28). A Negotiate to set terms — fair terms cost more now but build an ally; hard terms save credits and a grudge.
- The growers' problem. The combine's pressure is the real scenario: expose its dealings (Network, Research), out-bid or out-maneuver it (Chapter 28), or simply stand visibly with the growers so the combine looks elsewhere. No violence required, and violence makes it worse.
- The catch (Chapter 38). The combine doesn't forget either; beating it here ticks a faction clock and earns the crew a patient enemy with reach.
Resolutions. A secured Farcradle supplies the ark (the Woken track unblocks, 03a) and becomes a friendly port; a lost Farcradle means the ark wakes slowly and dearly, and the combine holds the crew's food supply over them.
What it advances. The Woken track (03a); a faction clock (the combine, advanced or checked); Farcradle as Contact or lost ground (Chapter 35).
Solo/GM-less. Oracle the combine's hand — how hard are they pushing? (likely hard, if their clock is high). Run the negotiation as an extended/opposed test (Chapter 5, 8); the growers' trust is the prize, tracked as a small clock.
6.3 The Note Comes Due§
Debt as the engine; the trap that feels like rescue (Chapters 28, 38).
The message is polite, which is how you know it's bad. Your creditor's terms have changed; the balance is due sooner than you planned, in more than you have. And in the same breath, a second message — a job, perfectly timed, that would cover it exactly.
The pitch. The crew's debt — the ship's mortgage, or a loan taken to fund the rebuild (03a) — comes due hard, and they're short. Right on cue, a patron offers a job that would cover it: clean money, simple work, no questions. It is exactly enough, and it is exactly the problem.
How it reaches the crew. A creditor (Saltgate's rising fees, or a Helios loan against the ark, file 02) calls the balance; the faction turn made it worse while the crew was away. The "rescue" job arrives at the same moment — because the same power arranged both.
The situation. The squeeze is real and the timing isn't an accident (Chapter 38, a clock the patron didn't mention). The job that covers the note is a hook — Helios (Lysande Orr, file 02) or another power offering exactly the lifeline that ties the crew tighter to them. Taking it is reasonable; taking it is also how the crew ends up owned. The trap that feels like the answer (file 02).
Running it.
- The squeeze (Chapter 28). Make the debt concrete and the deadline real. Let the crew feel the temptation of the easy job.
- The job — and its price. The offered work is doable but binding: a small thing now that makes the crew owe the patron a large thing later, or a task that quietly advances the patron's agenda against the ark. Read the fine print (Bureaucracy, Research) and the price shows.
- The alternatives. A crew that smells the trap can find the harder road — a worse-paying but clean job (6.1), selling salvage (Wave 1), leaning on a Contact (Chapter 35), or facing the creditor down. The scenario is the choice, not a fixed path.
Resolutions. Take the lifeline and the note clears — and a power's clock advances and its hooks set; refuse it and pay the hard way, staying free but stretched; turn the tables (expose the manufactured squeeze) and the crew flips a creditor into a debtor of favors (Chapter 35).
What it advances. The note/creditor pressure (eased or deferred); a power's clock and standing (file 02); the crew's independence — the campaign's quiet stake.
Solo/GM-less. Oracle whether the squeeze is engineered — did a faction arrange this? (likely, if a power's clock is high) — and let that set how dirty the "rescue" is. The choice is the crew's; the dice only price it.