The Magnus Archives - MAG Mothership Game - Part 1

Episode Date: July 8, 2021

Welcome to our TTRPG of Mothership by Tuesday Knight Games.In this first instalment of three, Ben leads Jonny, Lydia & Alex through an adventure in outer space, where everything is definitely, absolutely fine.Content warningsInnuendo & sexual referencesFire & explosionsVehicular collisionDeathMentions of: sexism, aliens, guns, injury, food, hygiene issuesSFX: high-pitched beeping, explosions & alarms, fire, screaming, loud hissing, tappingFor more information on the game played, check out Mothership here: https://www.mothershiprpg.com/Edited this week by Nico Vettese, Annie Fitch and Catherine RinellaProduced by Lowri Ann DaviesSound effects this week by LittleRobotSoundFactory, blindmaster, akemov, Suburbanwizard, harrietniamh, vumseplutten1709, danieldouch, Pertti.Orn, CGEffex, qubodup, Halleck, Iamgiorgio, RamonFranch, JarAxe, Jofae, Filo_Rossi, Oddworld, GameAudio, unfa,qubodup, GeorgeHopkins, alphatone & previously credited artists via freesound.orgCheck out our merchandise available at https://www.redbubble.com/people/RustyQuill/shop and https://www.teepublic.com/stores/rusty-quill.You can subscribe to this podcast using your podcast software of choice, or by visiting www.rustyquill.com/subscribePlease rate and review on your software of choice, it really helps us to spread the podcast to new listeners, so share the fear.Join our community:WEBSITE: rustyquill.comFACEBOOK: facebook.com/therustyquillTWITTER: @therustyquillREDDIT: reddit.com/r/RustyQuillEMAIL: [e-mail] Magnus Archives is a podcast distributed by Rusty Quill Ltd. and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Sharealike 4.0 International Licence Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Know your risks. Visit heartandstroke.ca Hi everyone, it's Johnny from the Magnus Archives. Today I'm here to tell you about Chapter and Multiverse, the new actual play podcast from Rusty Quill. Across each series of Chapter and Multiverse, we'll be diving into multiple tabletop systems no two series will ever be the same as we explore the city of Chapter across alternative universes Chapter and Multiverse will feature

a diverse, rotating cast of performers in our first series GM Maddy Searle will be running a campaign of masks, a new generation designed by Brendan Conway she'll be joined by Ahmed Al-Jabri, Laurie-Anne Davis, Lydia Nicholas, and Pip Gladwin as intrepid young superheroes in the metropolis of Chapter,

with Kareem Cronfley as the eternal tavern keeper. Search for Chapter and Multiverse wherever you listen to your podcasts, or visit www.rustyquill.com for more information. Hi everybody, Ben here. Welcome to the Magnus Archives feed. But this is not the Magnus Archives, no. It is tangentially related to the Magnus Archives. Please keep listening to our content. Today, I'm going to be running a game of Mothership, which is a tabletop role-playing game by Tuesday Night Games. That's night with a K, which is available as a pay

what you want PDF on DriveThruRPG or from their website. And then you can get extra modules which are paid-paid. This is basically an alien RPG. If you want to play Alien, this is the RPG for you. And today, I have with me... It's Johnny! He's still here! It's Johnny you might think he's gone because Magnus is gone but he's still here playing mothership

with his best friend in the world Ben Meredith it's true, bosom buds and who else do we have? I don't know how to follow that I'm Lydia, I played Melanie in the past that's a thing I did

and Lydia is my leg bud. And who else do we have lurking in the corner? That's Alex Newell. I used to play Martin and I am Ben's antagonist du jour. Yes. Du jour? It's a six-year jour. It's a big jour.

Six-year jour. It's a heffing great jour and I am sticking with it. Is the leg thing a reference to the fact that in our other continuing podcast your character doesn't have legs oh no i was just desperately trying to think of a body part like a bosom that wasn't like weirdly suggestive and i was like legs yeah legs is fine legs famously non-suggestive body parts. Ben Leggy Meredith, nothing suggestive there. Oh no, he's made it suggestive. Least erogenous of the limbs.

I feel like the elbow is probably the least sexy part of the body. There'll be people who are here for it. There'll be people who disagree. Don't write in. Please do not. There'll be people who've built their identity around the elbow being extremely erotic.

No, do not at us we are also going to be using the x card by john stavropoulos basically what this is is this is a horror game which means that themes may come up which are unpleasant to people it specifically or beyond the bounds of what is acceptable in a game for us you're not going to hear it on our skype call we'll be like holding our hands up like an x like we're you know calling the x-men or something thanks for demoing ben yeah i demoed it in a way that again well i was demoing the fact you can't hear it because i was doing it and they were good to hear it and we will edit out that bit it will be gone so you won't hear it being used by design

but yes it is being used and is a good thing and i would suggest looking at the free google doc and that you can read through for some good safety into rpgs i just want to say thanks for me for flagging up there on recording that we do that because i think too often these sorts of things are edited out of recorded shows and people don't get to know that there are like safety mechanisms and awkward discussions and stuff in games like this with professionals where they then think that they don't have space to do that themselves. Yeah, yeah. We make mistakes and we get uncomfortable

and we have discussions about difficult things and we do that. And that's the thing. You're allowed to. It's good, in fact. Yeah, Editor, if we can remove that acknowledgement of human fallibility, that'd be fantastic. Sorry, I've been struggling to pay attention because as soon as Ben said holding your arms up like the X-Men, all I could think was the X-Card accompanied by, in the 90s X-Men TV show, the really sad version of the... Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duhdo-do-do-do-do-do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally bear with you. Ah, well, that's the soundtrack for the game, I think. Yeah. Can we get the right to that? I'm sure we'll be fine. Something on a spaceship, it's gonna kill us all.

Ben's got horrible things waiting for us. Yes, absolutely. Speaking of, let's quickly set up the situation. So I've gone with a classic alien thing. You know, we're doing a one-shot, so let's keep it focused. You're all space truckers. You are hauling some supplies, which are not important, across space. Usually you would do this in cryosleep but every so often you are all woken

up for health checks and also to make sure that everything is fine and you have just been woken up because you are entering or you're flying a little bit too close to a specific planet so they need some human sort of governance to make sure that nothing goes wrong this is completely normal and standard nothing about this is wrong this is completely normal and standard nothing about this is concerning this is just about life being a long haul you know space flyer but before we get into the role play unless johnny's just really tired with this intro i do not want to be here there was some pre-role play there was some pre-role play i would like to very briefly meet the characters, but there's one thing.

So I've created some pre-written characters for this because nobody's got time for this. There are a couple of things that I haven't done, which is that each character has a patch and a trinket. So like a little patch that they sew onto their uniform and a little trinket that they have. And I would like people to actually roll on those things. Yes, lovely. Lyd, would you like to go first? Grant, I am an android whose designation is 0170701. I do not take well to that being shortened.

I am rolling my D100 generator. Oh, and a 96. It's a high score. Good. 96 is a pair of shot glasses and some spent shotgun shells. Interesting. Interesting. Apparently you're some sort of cowboy.

Well, am I supposed to explain what they are now? It's an idea generation. You can do it now. You can do it later. It might not come up. That's okay. That's cool. They are in, I will say, in a small case, which is goods. They are not on display on my shoulders like some kind of furniture ornament.

You don't have quarters as such, but you have like a locker that you keep your things in. They are in a locker. They are there. Cool. And would you like to roll your patch? Let's see. Let's see. Right.

That's a six. Okay. Which is? A biohazard symbol interesting i wonder if that is not an ironic thing but that the robot is actually biohazardous yeah sure or it has been carved into the metal in some kind of cruel prank which i then maintained maybe it's as simple as there to ensure that we don't try to eat you. It could be. Or it might be that at some point in the past,

you were biohazardous and like, because you were working, I don't know, in some radioactive or like medical sort of thing. And you really liked the distance that everyone gave you. So you've just kind of kept the symbol. Yes. You could just not like people. If we're going into the detail of this one now i won't say exactly what it but i'm going to say it's very worn and it is in fact on my

do androids wear jackets well i was going to say you can wear whatever you want to be honest do androids dream of cool jackets yeah i think it is on because it doesn't need to be washed changed and replaced in the same kind of way it is on their protective gear because being security i suppose i do have armor and the biohazard symbol is stuck to the armor and is quite worn it is still visible but it has clearly been there a long time for the purpose of you know if people aren't familiar with alien because you know not everyone in the world has seen the same things androids in the alien setting and by kind of relation this setting look very human like they look like people but better they're just better in every way yeah that's alex not an android you all alex remind me were you allowed

to play the android no but that's because i'm ben's antagonist and you know ben's pro robot the way everyone should be i genuinely did ban alex from playing the android because i knew it was just going to be robotic supremacy jokes forever do you have an appearance in mind or do you want to leave that ambiguous for now I was thinking incredibly bland featured male. For some reason, I don't like the idea of a female android, but then I realised that there is a lot to get into there about how we feminise helper robots. And in fact, I know a lot of really great articles that you could read

about why we give things like alexa and siri female voices and names and how that contributes to certain reproducing certain power structures but yes in this hard to describe so generic one of the chrises in the marvel franchise before they've bulked up kind of they just all look the same in a very like generic white but pale to the slightly unhealthy degree off the shelf if you had a toy of a corporate business person yeah that is what this creature would look like whichever chris you want to put in as lyd's character it's that chris yeah but not hot oh yes Liz's character, it's that Chris. Yeah, but not hot. Oh, yes.

Yeah. Just so generic. Your eyes almost slide off them and it's hard to describe them from a group. One of that class of Hollywood actor where you say, oh, it's that guy. And everyone starts saying different people from different films. Yeah, that one. Oh, you know, the one with the chiseled jaw, but not so chiseled that it really stands out you know yeah yeah the one with the eyes and that nose yeah the slight beard right and mousy brown hair you know the one mousy brown hair and tall but not so tall that people say like oh what's the

weather up there but like tall enough that other men pay deference to them but you know that that kind of thing nice good stuff okay johnny would you like to go next yes i am going to play carter block a engineer the engineer the engineer good stuff okay can you roll on your trinket table please i would love to roll on my trinket table ben that would be an eight okay so you have got a manual called Treat Your Rifle Like a Lady. Do I have a rifle?

Or a lady. I don't think I actually do. No, I don't think you do. No, that's so much better. That means that you've got life aspirations, but they're really specific. Oh, God. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No. Wonderful. In fact fact having seen that manual i make very careful not to leave you alone with any of my rifles oh good i like yeah that's bad but it says so much

about this character and my patch is 65 65 is it just says all seeing eye i guess you can say it actually does are you are you serious did you roll that good special little boy yeah you think johnny would on purpose put in a reference he's actually he has been shackled by this random roll the thing is what this actually indicates to me is that carter block is like kind of like a low-key anti-government conspiracy survivalist yep that makes sense that makes sense if he wasn't in a spaceship he would be building a bunker yeah i'm literally looking over all the rest to be like is this just the kind of cold reading thing are they all like eyes in some kind of way but no you you have actually rolled the only beholding baby one question is it a slogan that says all seeing eye or is it an image of an all seeing eye it's both to be honest like it's a triangle it's like the eye and pyramid on

the american dollar except instead of the pyramid it is the words all-seeing eye in a pyramid shape yeah nice yeah like i'll be honest the formatting and kerning isn't great but the patch just spoke to him oh that one hurt good question is it bought or homemade it's bought he's not like i don't think he's a particularly like he's an engineer He's not like, I don't think he's a particularly, like he's an engineer, but I think based on that book, I think he probably has certain views about what crafts are masculine and what crafts are not masculine. Of course, of course. Engineering, masculine. Cleaning a gun, masculine. Sewing his own patch, not masculine.

Yeah. And do you have a physical description for now or do you want to leave it for later pete posselthwaite sure absolutely that kind of like somewhere near the end of middle age but you couldn't tell exactly where because there's a lot of crags yeah nice and alex all right so rolling my D100 for a trinket. 47. So that is gloves, leather. Xenomorph hide brackets. Oh.

Gosh. That is a very high stakes trinket very quickly. Okay. How did you get these gloves? So I have to ask you, on a scale of common to unheard of, where do xenomorphs sit? I mean, they're common enough for gloves of them to exist. i guess like they're probably not common but they're about i mean also xenomorph probably doesn't refer specifically to a alien it's you know a foreign non-terrestrial creature also you don't necessarily need to know that that is what the leather is true now here's the thing i believe that my character hopes that they are and was sold them to be such because my character's extremely keen but hasn't been able to verify

such and it's probably the only article of faith that they've ever taken a leap on are they constantly telling everyone about these cool xenomorph leather gloves they carefully evaluate someone to decide whether they think they'll respond positively first because the last thing you want to do is throw it out there and have someone tell you you're wrong because that's just unacceptable yeah card was just like a small skin mate yeah so what is your patch 84 it's just in all caps the words, GOOD BOY. Okay. Do you want to elaborate on what that means to your character,

or are we leaving it ambiguous? I don't want to. I want to just leave that. I have a patch that says, GOOD BOY. What does the patch look like? The patch is in very large, bright, friendly colours and fonts. Think Don't Panic from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but good boy.

Sure, okay. Oh, I should probably give you a name. Oh, you should, and an appearance even. Indeed. Dr Alabaster Artichoke. God, Alex. Why are you Alex? All scientists have to have fancy names.

It's a rule. I was restrained, Alex. I was considering being Jim Elbow. I gave you a character that you could call dr al you're fine don't worry about it alabaster artichoke sure yeah dr alabaster artichoke and i'd like you to take a very pale and one and slight victorian gentleman and then transpose him into the current setting i don't mean in terms of clothing i mean you know that aesthetic yeah has spent far far far too long away from the sun and seems to relish that fact very small glasses very small glasses painfully thin yes but very quick to smile there you go and to say that you are all wearing the corporate standard uniform of a pale blue corporate jumpsuit over

which you have accessorized of course but you have to be wearing those as part of the rules but for example 0170701 also has a cool jacket well it's an armor thing oh yes sorry it's your armor isn't it yes it's stab proof yeah the only thing you could take from me is that one size truly does not fit all. I look more like a walking pair of curtains. At this point, I should probably explain how the system works. Obviously, I've explained this to the players beforehand, but for the audience's benefit. This is a D100 system.

You have four stats of strength, speed, intellect, and combat. When I ask the players to check against them, they need to roll a D100 and roll under their value. They also have some saves, which are sanity, fear, body and armour. This is when I do things to the players. So, you know, if the player wanted to try and fix an engine, they'd be rolling intellect. But if the engine then explodes, I'd probably ask them to roll an armour save. They'll take damage and they'll gain things. One particular thing that this game has is stress and panic.

Basically, the game over man, game over bit. Yeah! Which is probably the entire reason that this mechanic exists, would be my guess. But basically, when things go wrong, the players will gain stress. This can kind of be anything. It's very much like I determine when they gain stress. But usually it's like failing a roll because things are not going well and that is stressful. And then when I deem it appropriate, they will make a panic check.

They'll roll 2D10 and try and roll over their current stress level. That's how that works. So it gets harder, not easier. And if they fail that check, they will then panic. That means they roll on the panic table, which means that their behavior will become erratic because obviously they're freaking out and not necessarily thinking in the most logical way possible. There's also some class stuff like each of them. So Johnny is a teamster.

Alex is a scientist. And Lydia is an android. They have some specific mechanics, but we'll get to them if they're relevant. I don't have time and it's probably quite boring for me to explain all of the damn mechanics so you'll hear it through play but that's the basic stuff we shall now read the entire source book from page one to page 50 settle in this is an actual read not an actual play but yeah the last thing that i want from the players is to name their ship does anybody have offers? So what's the name of our company for listeners? Oh, yes, the United Earth Corporation, or UEC,

which is the prefix for the ship. Oh, OK, I like the idea of this company's ships being named after Earth landmasses, and this is such a small and generic ship. I'm trying to work out what the most... Isle of Wight? The most... Isle of Wight? The UEC Isle of Wight. Yeah.

UEC Jersey? I feel bad for Jerseyans. I know nice people from Guernsey, you know. I'm sure there's nice people on every island, just like they're harder to find on the Isle of Wight. No, Lydia has branded everybody in the Isle of Wight an absolute bastard. No, they're lovely

no oh dear please don't write it on postcards especially not ones from the isle of white ben are we keeping that bit of recording in from the pre-show where lid said that she wanted to sink the isle of white yes just straight into the sea what was the phrase pull out the plug and let it go down standing on the south coast arrogantly i wouldn't need to do anything about that like look coastal erosion and the shifting of tectonic plates which are lowering the south of england at a faster rate than the seas arising is doing that for me we are okay with that it's just the way that you described it a blight on the ocean that was really weird anyway before we go too far are we

good with the uec isle of wight yeah honestly i quite like isle of wight it's got a level of banality that i do like yeah so this is the uec isle of wight 0170701 has been looking after the general functioning but obviously is not a pilot or a navigator this is not their speciality their security which is good if anything attacked you also have a pilot called anton i can only think of debray which i think is a satanist no you're thinking of lavelle okay right this is such a you two conversation sorry so anton debray is fine so you also have a pilot called anton debray who is not being played by a player, so will definitely survive

a long, long time. Excited to see him enter a comfortable retirement. Ben, you will seriously go up in my esteem if Anton Debray is the only survivor. Like, I will be genuinely really happy with you. Well, we shall see. What is a survivor in a game like this fair

all the humans have been put into cryosleep while the android who doesn't age is looking after the ship because you are a long-haul freighter to confirm for myself 017 0701 has been awake and alone for upwards of months or years if we're talking about cryosleep let's say months okay cool cool the way that the faster than light travel or like sub light travel in this system works is a bit weird it's like skirting around event horizony so androids have reported weird goings on when you know traveling alone people don't know why and also for the sake of time let's say your period has been reasonably normal that's cool i

just wanted to check but your flight path has come quite close to an undesignated planet so there's a possibility that the gravitational field will pull you off course this is entirely normal because even though it's very empty space is you know often quite full of stuff as well so you have all been woken up in order for the pilot to basically just deal with this and make sure nothing goes wrong but that does mean that you're gonna have to be awake for a couple of days all right you've been awake for a little bit anton is in the cockpit dealing with things and you're sort of sitting around the breakfast table it's a little bit like an iconic scene from a certain film that you know we're not getting the reference to. I cannot picture the pilot as not the man Anton LaVey. He looks like he would be in deep space for a long time.

Shiny bald, little goatee. Just to let everyone know, in a closed atmosphere environment, that Anton LaVey was very anti-washing and believed strongly in the natural musk. Ugh. Ugh. Debray does believe

in washing because you are automatically washed during cryo sleep. Just scrubbed as soon as you're asleep. Just red raw. You've been up for a couple of hours. You're having a conversation around the table.

I'll give you a bit of time to decompress before doing something horrible to you. You're going to decompress us? Okay, everyone, we need to put on our suits. As the android who has been awake, I think I'll come in at the point where you are nibbling. Do I eat? I don't think I eat.

No, no, I don't think androids eat. Remember, you are run by milk, as we know when androids get hurt. You're just full of milk Full of milk I will glide in quietly Did you have pleasant dreams? Carter is drinking coffee from a tin cup And currently talking to Anton

About how, you know It's the fact that they scrub you before you go into cryo sleep it's like what are they trying to clean off you know because that's that's government regulations that is i don't think the company did it that's something governmental so you know you've got to think haven't you got to think about it i've been pilot for a lot of ships it's done on all the ships carter it's fine exactly it But why? It's a bacterial protocol, Carter. It's just a bacterial protocol. I believe it is to avoid contraindications

when bacterial secretions might interact with the cryosleep gel. Oh, great. If you could all get your bacterial secretions out of my ear holes, all right? Look, just back out. You look me up when your eyes are finally open about this stuff, you know? Fine car, whatever, whatever. And for reference, the way this, because the ship's layout is you've got the cockpit, then you've got sort of the straight off of it, the kind of general wreck area.

So you've got your big table. You've got like, I don't know, probably some VR games, stuff to keep you entertained and stop you going just horribly bonkers in space because it's terrible. Then just behind that, you've got the quarters. So there are four rooms, obviously 0170701, which by the end of this game, I will have memorised, doesn't really have quarters. They've just got a locker that's kind of in the corner of the entertainment area. I only require a locker.

And then behind that is the bulk of the ship, which is basically just a big warehouse full of stuff. You are currently full. You have a full shipment of generic, miscellaneous, normal items. And then right at the back, obviously, you've got the engines, engineering, just all the various bits. Like life support is at the back as well. Is this a design flaw? Probably.

Is this how they built the ship? Yes. Oh, and also, like like as part of life support you do have like a little hydropodics area for food and oxygen creation stuff like that so basically anton shoves you all out of the cockpit because you've done that annoying thing where you've kind of gathered behind his chair to like chat at him yeah just sipping coffee yeah exactly there's a few buttons that Carter knows are harmless and that he just likes to press. Yeah, so he's like slapping.

He's got a good finger feel. It feels like he's doing something. So he's like, let me concentrate, and just ushers you out, closes the cockpit door, and you hear a click of a lock, which can be overridden for emergency safety, but that's like a courtesy go away don't bother me for you know it's a do not disturb effectively so you're back into the wreck area 0 1 7 0 7 0 1 do we know

for why we've been awoken standard procedure we are too near the gravity well of this undesignated planet and actually let's say you look out of the viewing port and you can see the planet. You know, it's reasonably distant. It's a red planet. You can see some sort of like magnetic storms happening on its surface. It doesn't look particularly interesting, but it is the only landmark really in space. Right. Well, if you do not find that there are any challenges to interest or distract you, remember there are the suite of VR games. Did anything happen while we were slumbering? Nothing of note. And at that point, I would like to take a brief authorial control.

And for the purposes of the episode, Lydia, can you say nothing of note and like glitch and say that like, let's say five times. And then I'll jump in with a thing. Okay. Nothing of note. Nothing of note. Nothing of note. Nothing of note. Nothing of note.

And at that point, all heck breaks loose. Oh no. You were sitting in a perfectly, perfectly normal entertainment suite, and then all of a sudden there is a horrific noise of tearing of metal, multiple small explosions, as another ship appears intersected with your ship. Oh, no, I hate this. Oh, no. You're basically... The rec room has also become...

It looks like you've been merged with the sort of life support area of another ship. You hear amongst all of the tearing and scraping, you hear a scream from your cockpit, but also the table has been upended. There's a bunch of plants have just been thrown around that are dead and withered. You have like, let's say, alabaster was narrowly missed being bisected by a wall. There's, like, machinery and pipes.

A small fire has started. And it's just a cacophony of terror and awfulness. Oh, bloody hell! This is what happens when you try and make space time. Cards just happen to scream. That's very fair. And just to say, 0-1-7-0-7-0-1, that glitching has stopped. That was like a precursor to this event.

And now you're back to normal. This is irregular. Do you humanoids feel that you have sufficient oxygen to continue in? I will take that as a yes. Life support is... Is life support online? Well, at this point, you hear an automated, or you can just make out beyond the background noise,

an automated voice, which is the ship sort of on board, not AI, but, like, assistant, which I shall make mail. I mean, it's a thing. It's an interesting thing. I just really like the idea of just a really surly computer announcement voice. Okay, yeah, fine. It's Red Dwarf. Why not?

Yeah, Holly. Yeah. The life support system's compromised. Seven days of oxygen remaining. Multiple hull breaches. Fires in crew quarters. Entertainment cockpit completely compromised. Oh dear. Alabaster runs over and starts banging very weakly on the door to the cockpit if he can.

Please do not open the door to the cockpit. The cockpit is completely compromised. There will be a dramatic breach of life support and containment facilities please do not open the cockpit there will be a dramatic breach great obviously this is the thing in all rpgs when something suddenly happens and everyone wants to do something so let's run through people's things so johnny is carter trying to deal with a fire his first instinct is to throw the remains of his coffee on the fire fine then he stops looks around I assume that there are fire extinguishers. There's a fire extinguisher, absolutely. And it's unharmed?

It seems to be unharmed. He's going to extinguish some fires. Excellent. I'm not going to ask for a check for that because you have the tool. It's like, whatever, it's fine. You're currently like squirting, yeah, extinguishers out of fire.

In the meantime, we've got Alabaster and 0170701. Alabaster, after 0170701 has asked you to not do that, are you desisting? Alabaster is not actually trying to open the door. Alabaster's just banging on the door. Sure. Kind of futilely yelling, Anton, Anton, hello, are you in there? Hello, don't be dead, please. Cool. And what is 0170701 up to?

Do I have access to any kind of additional computer readouts? I don't know, am I connected to something that would tell me how he's doing? Or would I need to look that up on a screen? You are not integrated with the ship, but you can look it up on the screen and would you like to i will look up on a screen what compromised entails i assume there will be lots of red blotches on a blue background perhaps maybe an orange background for the full oh you know let's go orange absolutely yeah you've got that slightly washed out orange on yellow on beige kind of computer readout and presumably every time a letter comes up, it goes... Absolutely, and it's like a typewriter clicking for no particular reason. So, Lyd, can I get an intellect roll, and do you have computers as trained?

We can use this, I suppose, as a wonderful way to remind me and the audience of the rules. I rolled a 54, my intellect is 41. So your intellect is 41. If you look at the back of your sheet you've also got your skills do I have computers yes I do so what that means you get plus 10%

which means that the number you're trying to roll under is 51 because you've got plus 10% and you rolled a 54 which is a failure oh that's one thing I forgot about can everybody please take two stress? Because everything's gone awfully wrong

I'll do no such thing It says my stress starts at two Am I now overstressed? Your stress is now at four Oh, okay It's not a limit, it's just because I think being in space Is like there's just a background stress level Because it's very dangerous

Yeah, it's just a bit stressful Because you're surrounded by nothing Absolutely, and I could ask for panic rolls shall i cascade absolutely let's cascade so i'm going to deal with lid and then i'm going to ask for panic rolls lid you failed your computer's role to check the full status report however like it's not that you don't get any information it's just there's so much information it's a bit overwhelming like everything looks absolutely ruined and you are not an engineer so how bad it is like what you can see is that each area of the ship has like a kind of health bar like how full up the damage is the cockpit is a hundred percent that cockpit is

gone the likelihood that anton has survived this is basically nil right where you are the entertainment area is around about 40 which is why it's not like actively killing you right now crew quarters is 30 the warehouse is like 60 and life support and thrusters are at 89 oh oh oh dear it gives you a general idea of what is a problem. Right. But no really specific information. But what I'm also now going to ask for is panic rolls from all of you. Right.

So a panic check. So I say, when should you roll panic? I think after your ship is currently interacting with another ship is viable. It's pronounced splorked. Yes, it has been splorked with another ship. So make a stress check. So you're just rolling 2d10. So not a d100, it's just 2d10 adding together the result.

If you roll over your current stress, you don't panic and you relieve run stress. If you roll equal to or lower than your current stress, you panic and move on to step two. So does anybody roll equal to or lower than a four? No. Yeah, it's unlikely at this stage i did roll a five oof got close okay i have no coping skills well no you do still cope you know

a success is a success by whatever margin so you all lose one stress you're going down to three because there was a moment but now you're like okay we need to deal with this you know we're professionals we've trained for this not this but like you know, we're professionals, we've trained for this, not this, but like, you know, what goes wrong in space, you've had the orientation. So you've been splogged. Basically, yes. Zero, what's the damage? Extensive.

Possibly most critical is the damage to life support, which at 89% cannot maintain integrity for a particularly long time. I believe that life support will be critical to keeping you alive, and we should potentially fix that. Right, okay. I'm going to have a look and see on the readout

to see how best to go about fixing life support. Sure. Again, I don't think this needs a role, because you are the engineer, right? The thing to fix life support, the readouts are not detailed enough. You kind of have to get there and just see what the damage is. You don't know how to fix the problem until you know exactly what's happened.

It looks like it's not actively on fire, which is a small mercy. Can I take the... Actually, no, I'll have used up the whole extinguisher. Yes! Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But the fire is out. Do I have my tools nearby? Absolutely. Everyone's got their lockers in the rec room,

so you can kind of pull out your stuff. Fortunately, 0170701's locker has had the top chopped off by what looks like a piece of hull, but you can still open what's left of it and grab your stuff. I am covered in guns. It feels to me like we have three objectives. One is to look after life support. I am covered in guns. shut all that down and then find out what happened but i feel like the last one might be our lowest priority yes i'm gonna check life support i'll do the chemicals thing i'll just start turning basically any processes off that we can i will accompany you to life support good stuff so alabaster what is your intent with like what are you specifically trying to achieve with this

turning off chemical processes very very simple we're having a catastrophic ship failure. As a result, you have to look after your health, which is being covered by the life support team, and then you need to stop any further damage. And there's lots of moving parts on a big spaceship, and now there's double the amount of spaceship. So it's turn off everything it's possible to turn off and then start picking up the pieces. Okay, so you're basically powering down everything that's not critical

to make sure it's not, like, malfunctioning. Just anything I can get to to turn off, because otherwise that's another fire waiting to happen, an explosion we'll have to deal with later, etc., etc. At this point, most of those critical processes are governed by the thruster and life support areas of the ship. Cool. You are currently apparently in the life support section of this other ship,

so you could maybe try and access their systems if there is a terminal which is alive yeah you know what there's nothing that i enjoy more than being the one who is the first aboard the entirely unknown potentially immediately disappearing vessel well fortunately for you you are already on board it because it is now also your ship you have a hunt about for a terminal while zero one seven zero seven zero one and carter kind of are prepping to do an external jaunt because again like you don't know if there's vacuum there or not you kind of have a hunt about and underneath your table there is like the top of a terminal which appears to still be on you've kind of got to like lie on the floor to access it oh i hate this so much ben there's

going to be so many oblique angles in every room now it's very upsetting it's like you've been hit in the face by an escher painting the name of the ship because it's got its like little splash screen is the uec hilltop and if you want to make an intellect roll there was a moment where i was absolutely sure you were going to say, like, the UEC Isle of Dark. Yes, I'd love to do an intellect to see if that's even a ship that exists. I'd also like to have established that I am immediately wearing a hazard suit because

I have one. Yeah, fine, you can struggle into your hazard suit. Yes, please. So make me an intellect. Do you have any supporting skills? I mean, computers is the obvious one, but I will take offers. I have chemistry, hydroponics and biology. So unless it's a very upsetting computer, I don't think I have anything relevant. Actually, hydroponics, I think, because you're looking at the life support area. Oh, cool. Cool, cool, cool. You would be accessing the equivalent terminal on your ship to do your job. So I need to roll lower to succeed, yes?

Yes, you need to roll under. So you're looking at your intellect score, plus 10. Smash it. My base intellect's 53 and I rolled 15. Oh, fine, great. Oh, that's one thing to mention as well. If you roll a double, so the same value on each dice, that is a critical. Ah.

If you succeed, it's a critical success. If the roll is a failure, it is a critical failure. But basically doubles always make a critical. Ah. If you succeed, it's a critical success. If the roll is a failure, it is a critical failure. But basically doubles always make a roll. I really like these mechanics. These good mechanics. I like the system. But yeah, so doubles are always a critical. Perfect.

You've rolled extremely well. You access the UEC Hilltops life support system. And fortunately, it looks like they are still functioning to some extent and because these ships have been mashed together any oxygen it puts out is being kind of circulated within the confined space of the combined ships so although this is heavily damaged and from what 017 0701 has said your life support system is very damaged they're kind of working together to keep the livable area going. May I make a follow-up intellect check that's sort of attached to that?

Sure. Currently, there's a glass half-empty route, which is we have two broken ships. Yes. There's a glass half-full route, which is between two broken ships, we have one functioning ship's worth of systems. Potentially. Do I think that's a viable route, or am I just like, no,

like, we need to, like, cut off the limb? As an engineer, Alex, I will say that's not how ships work. You're in life support, you leave me alone! Unfortunately, Carter Block is correct. Boo! Fair. There are systems which work, but you're never gonna get them to work together. Understood. The fact is

that this is just venting oxygen into the same enclosed space, and that's why it's working together. But other than that, like, the thrusters are completely rubbished. Alabaster, you know that, yeah, you're not going to suffocate. You start flicking down, like, the really non-critical systems just to prevent just random stuff occurring. Just reduce the variables.

Keep reducing variables. Yes. Although, when you're looking at the readout of the hydroponics, it also has kind of the makeup of the air on the UEC hilltop. And you have a, like, flick through the reports. And you see that, like, the air mix that it's reporting is not coming to 100%. There is something else, which is just being reported as anomalous. So, like, the systems do not know what it is, but it's like there's something in the air, and, like, we don't know.

That's what hazard suits are for. That's what hazard suits and back suits are for. Coming in the air tonight. On that note, I think, with 0170701 and Carter Block preparing to head to the life support and thruster area of your ship, the UEC Isle of Wight, and Alabaster just finding out about this strange occurrence in the UEC hilltop, which may or may not be associated with the fact that it's munged itself into your ship somehow.

It's what? Oh, by the way, it's munged. A munge. Munge. To munge. To munge. As in merge, but also lunge. He, she or they munges.

I think it's very onomatopoeic. If you, like, get your hands, make them loose and just kind of push them together, that's what a munge is to me. It's the lay term, but yes, munge would suffice. But yes, I think on that note, we're going to end the episode here and we will be back in part two of the Mothership RPG.

Thanks, Ben. I hate it. Bye! In the best way possible. This episode is distributed by Rusty Quill and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution non-commercial share alike 4.0 international license. For more information, visit RustyQuill.com, tweet us at TheRustyQuill, visit us on Facebook,

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