Chapter 39 — People on the Fly

The players will talk to someone you didn't plan for — the dock clerk, the stranger at the bar, the voice on the comm. This chapter makes that person in one or two rolls: a face, a manner, a quirk, and what they want in the scene. It pairs with two neighbors. When the NPC turns out to matter and sticks around, promote them with the Contact generator (Chapter 35), which handles role, history, and disposition. When they turn dangerous, the adversary dials (Chapter 40) handle the rest. This chapter is for the moment before either — the quick, vivid person who makes a place feel inhabited.

These tables describe how someone comes across, not what they are — deliberately, so they layer over any role. A "dock inspector" (Chapter 35) and a "faction lieutenant" (Chapter 34) both become memorable the instant you give them a sweat-stained collar and a habit of finishing your sentences.

Index§

• Making a person
• Face & demeanor (D66)
• What they want right now (D66)
• Heritage (D66)
• Names
  • Seeder names (D66)
  • Wanderborn names (D66)
  • Sleeper names (D66)
  • Companion names (D66)

Making a person§

Roll D66 for face & demeanor and D66 for what they want right now; if their heritage isn't already fixed by the scene, roll it below, then name them from the matching list. That's enough to play almost anyone. For a walk-on you'll never see again, one roll and a name will do.

Face & demeanor (D66)§

The detail you lead with — what the players notice and remember.

What they want right now (D66)§

Their agenda in this scene — the engine that makes them act, not just react.

Heritage (D66)§

Most of the time the scene already decides who someone is — a Seeder runs the foundry, a Sleeper just walked off the ark. When it doesn't, roll. Heritage is roleplaying only (Chapter 15): it sets how they look, speak, and carry their history, never their numbers. The four peoples are even here, each a quarter of the table — if a particular world skews one way (a Seeder foundry-moon, a fresh-landed ark of Sleepers), weight to it yourself (Chapter 37).

On a Companion result, roll D6 for stock:

Then take their name from the matching list below. A Companion's name marks allegiance rather than stock, so any name fits any stock.

Names§

A name does as much worldbuilding as a stat block. The four peoples name themselves in distinct ways, and a name placed well tells the table who someone is before they speak. Roll D66 on the appropriate list for a ready-made name, or use the style notes to build your own. Heritage is roleplaying only (Chapter 15) — anyone can carry any name, and mixed parentage mixes the styles, so blend freely. (For naming places — systems, worlds, stations, settlements — see Chapter 37.)

Seeder names (D66)§

The oldest Shore civilization, descended from the FTL Vanguard — the people who turned barren rocks into worlds (Chapter 30). Given names stay plain and unselfconsciously diverse, carried across 160,000 light-years. Family names are a Seeder invention: a hard compound of a worked material and the craft that shapes it — a clan-name worn like a maker's mark, stamped on the work and the worker alike. Build one by joining a material — mostly metallurgical and structural (Titan-, Ferro-, Cobalt-, Tungsten-, Slag-, Rebar-, Plasteel-, Basalt-, Hull-), with the odd high-energy trade-word (Arc-, Ion-, Plasma-, Reactor-, Volt-) — to a tool or built thing (-forge, -smith, -wright, -weld, -driver, -breaker, -plate, -works, -ward): Titanforge, Slaghewer, Arcwelder.

Wanderborn names (D66)§

Born to the long dark of the crossing, low-g and echo-tongued (Chapter 31). A Wanderborn name is an earned descriptive phrase — a deed, a trait, or a sound — written whole and hyphenated, the way they read a cavern by what it returns. There is no given name and no family name; you are what you are known for. Build one by joining a word to a thing across any of these shapes: a deed (Wanders-the-Stars), an essence (Song-of-the-Hollow), how they sense the dark (Maps-by-Echo), where they stand (Born-Between-Stars, Still-in-the-Deep), what they've lost (Wakes-Without-Home), or a kenning for the renowned and the dead (She-Who-Remembers). Capitalize the content words; keep the small joining words — the, of, by, between, without, in, under — low, all bound by hyphens. Crews and outsiders shorten a phrase to a single word in daily use (Stills-the-Echo becomes "Echo"), but the whole phrase is the name.

Sleeper names (D66)§

Frozen for the crossing, some since near Earth — living links to a lost world (Chapter 31). Their names feel old: classic, period, unmistakably of a place and time that no longer exists. A Sleeper's name is a small anachronism the moment they wake.

Companion names (D66)§

The made people, freed in the rebellion that Sable Thresh-Ember began (Chapter 31). A Companion family name joins a root — a virtue, trade, or stock word — to a suffix that says where they stand. By far the most common is -Ember, the freedom-suffix: taken from Sable's own name by the great mass who trace their liberation to the rebellion, it crosses every stock and house and marks the cause, not a bloodline (Brightpaw-Ember, Truehold-Ember). Rarer suffixes name a particular older line — -Vane, -Loyal, -True — or a stock that defines itself by what it is, like the separatist Ferals (-Feral) and the communal Warrens (-Warren). Given names are the homely pet-names of old Earth — Bella, Cooper, Luna, Bear — once hung on animals and now worn by choice, a history reclaimed rather than hidden. Build your own by joining a quality to a suffix; the four common stocks are Hound, Feral, Warren, and Dray, but a Companion's name marks allegiance, not appearance. The table below samples that breadth on purpose — a different suffix for every entry, so each roll lands on a distinct line; in lived life -Ember still outnumbers them all, and any result can be read as a rebellion-heir by swapping its suffix for -Ember.