Playtest Alpha— unfinished and still changing.
Campaigns

Handouts & Leads

Player-facing material: documents to read aloud or hand across the table, a sheet of Driftmarch bar-talk, and three ready leads to open play. The artifacts are written to be shown; each carries a short GM note in italics — what it is and where it threads (file 04) — that you keep to yourself. Reveal the documents in pieces; a half-read ledger or a fragment of a transmission pulls harder than a whole one. Nothing here is a new rule.

Index§

The claim§

What the crew holds — registered at Saltgate, and not worth as much as they hoped.

SALTGATE FREE COMPANIES — FINDER'S REGISTRATION & SALVAGE CLAIM
  Filed this day · Witness: Harbormaster O. Vex · Fees: per schedule, in advance

  Subject:  ballistic ark, Sòrensen-frame, hull-name CONCORD —
            derelict; fringe hex, Stilldrift approach (coordinates released on payment)
  Claimant: ___________________________  (the crew)

  Status:   REGISTERED.
  Saltgate warrants neutrality, not title. Competing or prior claims are the
  claimant's own affair. The Companies collect their fee whoever ends up holding
  the hull. No refunds.

  Appended: ONE (1) prior interest of record exists against this hull.
            Refer the Calloway's Watch registry.

GM note: the crew's starting position — a claim that's real but contestable, and the first quiet thread to NULL (that "prior interest" is the lien, below; file 04). Onna Vex (file 02) sold the same coordinates to at least one rival.

The wake-ledger§

A page of the list Lumen keeps and the station never sees — Sefa Brun's copy (Spine B; files 02, 04).

COLDCRADLE — REVIVAL PRIORITY      ·· TRUST COPY — NOT FOR STATION RECORD ··

  ID 4471   estate: cleared ................... THAW
  ID 4472   estate: in probate ............... HOLD   (pending settlement)
  ID 4488   estate: contested — surviving heir  DEFER  (indefinite)
  ID 4501   estate: encumbered, Trust-held .... HOLD
  ID 4517   estate: cleared ................... THAW
  ID 4520   estate: contested — names the Trust  DEFER  (review w/ legal first)

  [in a different, hurried hand, down the margin:]
  the cleared ones wake. the contested ones don't. i counted. — S.B.

GM note: proof Lumen wakes whoever's safe to wake and quietly holds whoever's estate it wants. Hand the players one row at a time. "S.B." is Sefa Brun, who wants out (scenario 7.1); the ledger is the campaign-long lever against Lumen.

The lien§

The document that should not exist (the NULL chain; files 02, 04).

INSTRUMENT OF LIEN          — registry echo, Calloway's Watch, certified true copy

  Holder ............. [no name of record]
  Filing agent ....... NULL
  Secured against .... the hull CONCORD, in whole — and all souls aboard.
  Instrument dated ... [a year that predates the registry itself — predates the Ejection]
  Redemption ......... on demand of the holder. No demand has been filed.
  Address of holder .. none on record.

  [clerk's annotation:]
  This cannot be valid. I have tried to strike it four times.
  It is also not removable. — M.S.

GM note: the first hard proof that something older than the Ejection is reaching for the ark. "M.S." is Registrar Maude Sennan (scenario 7.2). Reveal this only when the crew works the registry; it should chill, not explain.

The Last Transmission§

A fragment, pulled from the Concord's memory cores (Zone 7; the deep prize, file 04). Decryption is partial; let it stay that way for a long time.

[ MEMORY CORE — FRAGMENT — decryption 31% — source flagged: WANDERSTAR, final window ]

  "...if you are hearing this, you reached the Shore and we did not. Good. Carry it.

   ...do not let them tell you the crossing is over. We sent one thing ahead of you,
   and we left one thing behind — at ____

   [signal lost] "

GM note: Wanderstar's last word, and the reason NULL wants the cores buried. The blank ("left one thing behind — at ____") is Lasthollow (file 01); don't fill it in until the crew earns it. The fragment is a prize worth a war (Chapter 38); rumor of it alone moves the whole sector. (Optional: if your crew played Dead Air, this is the fuller recording of the partial they carried across the Throat — the blank they could never fill, filled at last. NULL has hunted it since that crossing.)

The bond-manifest§

The stasis-hold's other ledger — the one that lists people as freight (Spine C; Chapter 31; files 03, 04).

CONCORD — HOLD MANIFEST (SUPPLEMENTARY)        ·· STASIS — NON-PASSENGER ··

  Lot 19   Dray lineage      ×6   grade: heavy labor      bond: held
  Lot 20   Hound lineage     ×4   grade: courier/survey   bond: held
  Lot 21   Feral lineage     ×3   grade: technical        bond: held
  Lot 22   Warren lineage    ×5   grade: general          bond: held

  Names: not recorded.

GM note: hand this across and let the silence do the work — there are no names. The "held" bonds are what a bond-holder's agent comes to collect (scenario 8.1); voiding them is the Second Liberation's first spark. Wren Sablekin (file 02) wants this manifest.

Two letters§

The velvet glove and the unsigned card — the two ways a power first reaches a crew.

From Helios Vanguard (the rescue that owns you; file 02):

  From the office of Regional Director L. Orr — Helios Vanguard Heavy Industries
  To the master of the Concord:

  Congratulations on a remarkable find. You have, if you'll forgive me, rather
  more ark than crew. Helios would be glad to underwrite the work — fabrication,
  counsel, protection — on terms I think you'll find generous. Let us help you
  keep what you've found.

  We so rarely get to be the rescue.
        — L.O.

From "Mr. Ashford" (NULL's first touch; files 02, 04):

  [a plain card, no letterhead]

  Re: the item we discussed. The offer stands, and rises.
  My client collects oddments. No questions. No record.
  Leave word with the fixer at Saltgate.
        — N.

GM note: Orr's letter is the trap that feels like the answer (scenario 6.3); Ashford's card should read as harmless until, sessions later, it doesn't (scenario 7.3).

Bar-talk in the Driftmarch§

Roll 1D12 (or pick) when the crew listens at a dock, hunts work, or you need a thread to dangle. These are the Driftmarch's own, atop the general table in Chapter 33. As always, at least one rumor at any table is wrong — let the crew weigh what they hear.

1D12What you overhear
1A dead ark the size of a moon drifted in off Stilldrift, and some fool crew filed a claim on it
2The breakers moved a ship up close to it. They don't usually wait for traffic that doesn't come
3A Coldcradle officer's gone missing — or gone to ground. She was asking who decides who wakes
4The old families at Calloway's Watch are nervous about a filing nobody can read
5Helios is being helpful again. Count your fingers after you shake
6There are Companions in that ark's hold, logged as cargo. The Burrow already knows
7Out at Newlanding they carved a smaller ark to the bone and the wakers got nothing
8A buyer's been paying stupid money for ark-junk and old debts. Won't say who for
9Lasthollow answers now. (It does not. — but someone wants the crew to think so)
10Whoever holds that ark's reactor holds forty thousand lives. Think on that
11The Concordat say the ark's theirs by right of being aboard it. The lawyers disagree
12Wanderstar sent a last word before it left, and it's sitting in that hull, unread

GM note: 1–2 open the ark; 3–4 the Lumen/registry chains; 6 the Liberation; 8 & 12 the NULL/Last-Transmission chain; 9 is the planted false rumor. Each points into the web (file 04).

Three ways in§

Three ready openings, matching the on-ramps in file 00. Pick one to start.

  • Broke at Saltgate. Hand the players the claim (above) and nothing else. They own — on paper — a dead ark they've never seen, the fees are due, and a fixer is already taking bids on it. First lead: get out to Stilldrift and see what they've got (Wave 1).
  • Aboard already. Open mid-rebuild: one deck warmed, the breach held, the cryo failing in the dark below. A GANYMEDE breaker has just appeared on sensors (scenario 5.1), and a woken passenger is asking the crew what they intend. First lead: defend the ark, and decide what it's for.
  • Working for a power. The crew are a faction's hired hull (Lumen, Helios, or the Free Burrow) sent to the Concord on a job — survey it, secure it, fetch from it — and discover what they're really standing on. First lead: finish the job, or seize the ark for themselves (scenario 6.3 / the crown, file 03).

Whichever opening you choose, hand the crew one document and one rumor, and let them pull.