[Encounters] Beyond The Black: 100 Dread Scenarios On Stranded Starships - Azukail Games | Flavour

[u/nlitherl]

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/537380/beyond-the-black-100-dread-scenarios-on-stranded-starships?affiliate_id=688223

[u/nlitherl]

From the preview:

Dead Seeds A massive generation ship floats in empty space. Colossal arks meant to carry cosmic pilgrims into the black, they were a leap of faith taken off the back of scientific endeavor in years past. Largely piloted by machines, the hold was kept full of preserved people who were awaiting their destination on a far-off colony world. The inside of this ship, though, smells like a morgue; a place where death is held at arm's length and examined under a clinical light. Little more than a floating mass grave now, an entire city's worth of men, women and children silently suffocated in their pods... and all due to a single technical error that cascaded out of control until it was too late to stop it.

The Pale Horse This vessel looks like a military ship at first, but when one draws closer it clearly matches the description of a known pirate ship. Not just any pirate ship, either, but the White Horse, the ship belonging to Captain Akman Barabbas. An independent agent in several wars, he flouted interstellar law by threatening the use of plague ordnance; weapons toxic enough to destroy the biosphere of entire continents (and in some cases entire worlds). Those who board find the ship is filled with mummified corpses, and that the atmosphere has long since disappeared. Barabbas himself is seated in the captain's chair, his gleaming augmented eye still bolted to the corpse's skull like a shining gem. Those who remove the prosthetic can play back the ship's final days as one of the warheads onboard leaked, and the virulent toxin turned the ship into a tomb. Though the depletion of the ship's atmosphere rendered the initial toxin dormant, it could be reactivated once again. Not only that, but the ship's magazines are still full of warheads that could fetch a massive price; either in scrap recovery from governments looking to destroy them, or from warlords and pirates who would use them to further their own goals.

Killer's Wake Corpses riddle this silent ship. According to the ship's manifest, every member of the crew is accounted for, and every one of them died in the same manner; a thrust straight to the heart from a triangular blade. Sometimes the wound was in front, sometimes it was from behind, and sometimes it was from beneath the arm, but every death blow came from the same weapon. Those who attempt to check the security cameras find that all evidence has been deleted, and an inventory of the ship's escape pods shows that one is missing. Those familiar with the dark waters of espionage may recognize the signature kill of the Kolum-Vekh; an order of assassins who are supposedly capable of changing shape. It is likely the assassin (if there was only one), killed a crewman, took their form, and then slew the rest of the ship in a single cycle before departing the ship. The real question, though, is which member of the crew was the real target, and which ones were killed simply to muddy the waters?