Troupe Play & Character Progression - Navigator Domain Procedures Part 3

This is both the least useful and most potentially divisive of my Navigator mechanic posts (intro, domain economy, island generator, troupe play, full document) - I am fully "recreating Runequest by accident" here. The goal is to specialize PCs enough that choice of player character is relevant, and to support troupe play as the Navigator septs elect new leaders.

1 - Progression via XP

At the end of a turn, this season's Select gain Experience Points equal to the amount of Glory collected by their sept this turn. This counts penalties to Glory (a sept who collected a vital resource at the cost of two deaths gains 5-2-2=1 Glory, and thus the Select gains 1 XP) but unlike Glory XP cannot be lost.

XP can then be spent on benefits for the Select who earned it: 

Skill Improvement

New characters begin with one skill from their Background, then [1+WIS bonus] (min. 1) skills of the players' choice. Skills provide a +4 bonus to relevant checks, and also increase the scope of tasks you can complete with no check. 

A new skill costs 15 XP.  

Combat Skills

"Melee Combat" and "Ranged Combat" are skills a player can choose to improve, providing a +1 to-hit with their associated attacks. 

Individual weapon proficiencies ("Navigator throwing darts", etc) can also be bought, providing +1 to-hit with that weapon and unlocking its weird bonus (cleaves, disarms, free throws, whatever). 

Both of the above can be bought twice per entry, and stack (so you may have Ranged Combat 2 and Darts 1, for a +3 to-hit).  

Sidebar - Standard Navigator Weapons

Throwing Darts - light (1d6), must be thrown - proficiency: after rolling initiative, you may choose to go on Init 0 to treat your initiative roll as an immediate thrown attack roll with a dart (stolen from a Discord post by Grackle Court).

Painted Dueling Knife - light (1d6) - proficiency: you may sacrifice 3 damage on a successful hit to disable a human target's limb for a round with stinging pigment.

Boarding Axe - medium (1d8) - proficiency: gain an extra attack if you just entered melee range with your target.

Spear - medium (1d8) - proficiency: anyone approaching you with a shorter weapon is immediately attacked.

Air Rifle - heavy (1d10), +2 to-hit - proficiency: a maneuver spent aiming grants advantage to-hit and to damage.

Greataxe - massive (2d6) - proficiency: damage dice explode. 

HP   

PCs begin with [6+CON bonus] HP. You can spend 15 XP to purchase another 2, up to a maximum of +6. 

2 - Progression via Background 

Later, in part 3.5 because it will be very long and take forever and I was supposed to post this a month and a half ago, an updated list of Navigator backgrounds will come with a single delta template to earn that enhances your background's effect. Some of these are easy (Gunsmith Aspirant, Espatier), some of them will be a bit more troublesome. 

3 - Becoming Imperious 

At the beginning of Black Season, list three of your upcoming accomplishments - I will put a town of the Spire to the torch, I will bring down a towering machine, I will clear an isle of Machine Space, et cetera. Your assembly will add conditions to these - do it without casualties, do it alone, do it unarmed, and so on.

Complete all three and in the next Blue you will be eligible for election - a simple plurality of septs. In case of tie, the last Imperious chooses.

When you become Imperious, a new Select is chosen for your sept. Play both of them for the Blue Season. 

The Imperious PC is expected to live inside their Assembly-Ship, surrounded by finery and courtiers (caught by their authority like a fly in a spider’s web). They are provided the use of a beautifully-decorated ultralight in order to reach sept-vessels.

They have six Lictors - capable combatants (+2 to-hit, heavy weapons) sent from your Assembly to act as bodyguards and police force. They are always available.

Each turn, the Imperious may make a single Decree:

Prepare the Engine Array - 5 points are added to the tally of your Assembly-Ship. Surplus fuel gives each sept of your Assembly gains one slot of a trade good, Pressurized Hydrogen (which can also be expended to run away, pour cryogenic liquid on something, or whatever else you'll do with a tank of liquid hydrogen).

Prepare the Sensor Antennae - 5 points are added to the tally of your Assembly-Ship. A new route is revealed to the septs of your Assembly. Describe one feature of the island, as the antennae sweep over it.

Prepare the Ecosystem - 5 points are added to the tally of your Assembly-Ship. All septs of your assembly gain 3 Surplus.

Self-Aggrandize - floating 0g wine-spheres, lapis lazuli furniture, big murals with your face on them, the whole nine yards. Gain 3 Glory for your sept - other septs may spend Surplus to give you 1 Glory for each 2 Surplus spent. The Select may also arrive at your council to speak to each other and so you can harangue them face-to-face.

Declare Judgment - arrive at a sept and lay down the law. Your lictors are empowered to perform executions, mutilations, exiles, and other tortures as long as you are personally present.

Entrap Advisor - summon and host an NPC of your choice. They are not permitted to refuse.

4 - Diagetic Improvement 

Look, I'm not leaving all these electromagnets and volatile chemicals lying around for no reason. You want a higher attack bonus? Homemade railgun.

Maybe there'll be places and things that let you spend XP for new weird feats. That sounds like something I'd write down and then forget to ever put in. 

like this, from Rise Up Comus's Middle-Earth hexcrawl.

5 - PC Rotation  

Wounded characters take turns off to be cared for, during which you play another PC. Sure, this is a reason to have a second one lying around, but it's not really much of one. 

So, I'm considering one of these:

1. Characters must take a season off in order to spend their experience. 

2. When you choose a returning character as Select you lose Glory equal to 1/4th their total experience. Repeat Select are seen as harmful. It is expected for you to do well and get out of the way so someone else can soak in the benefits - taking up the mantle again goes against Navigator leveling mechanisms, and raises both fear ("perhaps they are sliding into tyranny") and pity ("is their sept so bereft that no one else could be found to acclaim?") in your neighbors. This one is true to the setting, but it's also the most blatant use of the rules to make the players play the game a certain way, and I assume there's a theoryposter ready to kick down my door if I use it.

So. I will use... one of them. The 2rd is the most interesting to me, as you can tell from it being 7 times as long as the other, but I can see plenty of reasonable players going "it costs me a FINE? to play MY CHARACTER?" and hitting me with stones.

Postscript

Someone, I think Prismatic Wasteland (on an old newsletter?), would end posts with links to posts on other blogs, for that good ol' cooperation and collaboration thing. I saw this, went "wow, I should do that", and then never remembered to.

This time I finally have because of ALLUVIUM, a Lanthanide Horizon mini-hexcrawl by friend of the blog Primeumaton (whose hexes are always a delight). Maybe I'll remember to again. Or I won't.

Machine Space Exploration - Navigator Domain Procedures Part 2

Part 2 of my four part series on fixing mistakes in my spaceship-hunter-gatherer domain game. See part 1 (on economy and domain actions), and later part 3 (troupe play and character advancement) and 4 (new players' document).

The megastructure is crossed by Machine Space - thousands or millions of miles of airless tunnels that twist around the structure's hexcrawl regions. Navigator sept-vessels travel through this place - a great black sea for the Volume's sailors.

spaces between spaces

Machine Space is handled in the same way as Phlox's wonderful Acmori - known routes through its halls, recorded in songlines, are handed out as a type of loot. These routes have a couple static pre-rolled encounters (it is known, of course, that this route is haunted with constant sensor sweeps), a couple descriptive landmarks (the geyser, where the broken air pipe sprays condensation into the vacuum), and a couple spaces for newly-rolled random encounters (on a list that I do not, uh, have yet). 

Many of these routes lead to the "islands" of Machine Space - humming devices, precarious factories, and other adventure sites. Septs can reach one of these islands, explore it, and move on in the course of a season. While exploring an island, characters can still communicate with their sept-vessel using light-semaphore (so you can do Fun Problem Solving with your giant tow cables and big saw and so on). 

Some routes lead, instead, to hexcrawl regions - the beautiful Spire, the distant Vault, the Hanging Gardens, et cetera. Exploring these regions takes two seasons - the first spent reaching the site and breaking it open, and the second exploring the hexcrawl. 

If you are inside one of these regions during a change of season, you are given the option to flee immediately into Machine Space. If you do not, gain 1 Glory as the structure notices the damage done to its region and sends its Dreadnought for repair and sterilization. 

Island Prompter

The island itself is a hexflower or a tiny pointcrawl or something. Because I'm already in the hex-keying mines for this project, the button below provides concepts for islands of Machine Space. Thanks to Slight Adjustments for their list-to-HTML-generator tool. 

The Sept-Vessel Economy - Navigator Domain Procedures Part 1

This system is a complete ripoff of Sofinho's excellent Alone in the Wilderness, except for the parts that are a complete ripoff of Phlox's beautiful Ten Blade Demigod. This part one of 4 where I work through my previously identified problems with my Navigator spaceship-nomad domain game rules. Later parts will go over new rules and generators for the "islands" of the endless halls of Machine Space, new troupe play and character advancement, and a complete "second edition" rules document.

Navigators divide time into two seasons - the Blue, where their home cylinder of the Volume is filled with breathable air, and the Black, where it empties and Navigator sept-vessels spread out through the megastructure. Each of these seasons is then divided into two turns, the Waxing and Waning. 

At the start of the turn, determine the amount of food foraged by your sept - in the Volume during Blue Season this is [population/6]d8, collected from the grasslands of the cylinder. In Machine Space this is [population/6]d4, from cracking water lines and looting transport rails. In the Volume during Black Season, this is [population/6]d2 - unsurvivable.

It is a bright day in the waxing half of Blue Season - under the linear sun, sept Certifier (population 36, so rolling 6d8) rolls 18 - really just startlingly bad.

Each member of your sept is assumed to eat 2 meals a day - this can be increased to 3, improving the morale of your sept and letting you roll sept members' HD twice and take the highest result when relevant. It can also be decreased to 1, granting disadvantage to HD rolls and leading to general whining and complaining. 

Your sept's food consumption is also divided by 6, to fit with food production. 

Certifier's population of 36 means they eat (36/6)*2 = 12 units of food by default. This leaves a surplus of 6. 

Having a surplus means that your sept has time left over after collecting enough food for the group. This extra time can be spent on sept projects. Surplus time can be added to a project over multiple seasons - improvements do not need to be completed in a single turn.

Improve the Vessel's Holdings

• Sept-vessels have 4 stats, called "holdings": Weaponry, Trade Goods, Reliquaries, and the rare Mysteries. Starting sept-vessels have 1-3 points spread through these stats.  
• The level of a holding can be increased by putting 15 points of time into the project per target level (15 to go from no holding to level 1, 30 from 1 to 2, et cetera). 
• This can be halved if a relevant item is included in the construction of the holding (if you recover your ancestor's gold-plated skull you can stick it in your reliquary, and so on). Any single item may only be used for this purpose once. 
• Improving the level of a Mystery requires use of a relevant item, and still costs the full price. 

Build an Asset 

• A catchall for the construction of other sept-vessel additions - gardens, spotlights, tow cables, et cetera.
• Asset prices are negotiated - they may gain a discount from, or require, access to a relevant item.

Craft a Treasure

• If you have a Mystery of at least level two, you can attempt to craft treasures based off of it at a cost of 15 surplus per property of the treasure. 
• Each turn you put surplus into this action, roll 1d20 + the crafter's Intelligence + the level of your Mystery. If you roll below a 20, a complication arises that must be resolved before the treasure is completed.
• The cost of the treasure is decreased by 1 for relevant rare substances or valuable objects used in the crafting, and by 2 if the crafter has a relevant skill. The roll for complication gains an equal bonus.  

Preserve

• By default, all surplus time is lost at the end of a season. 
• 2 points of time can be spent to provide a free point of time on the next season, as your sept works to preserve food and lower the amount of forage needed.
• (i.e. if sept Certifier spent 6 surplus preserving food, next season they would roll 6d8+3 for forage.)

Host

• You may host a particular character, or choose to open your doors to any number of other septs. This is used for any type of hosting activity - political councils, weddings, et cetera. 
• In the Blue Season, you may host another character in your assembly-ship instead of on your sept-vessel - this is seen as politely distant, while hosting on your own vessel is seen as extremely close. 
• On weddings - remember that all weddings are political alliances, and that they are only permissible between left-handed and right-handed septs. You may be expected to host twice - once for the discussion of the spouse-prices and placements, and again for the marriage.
•  Hosting costs at minimum 3 surplus, with increased spending striking awe in your guests.

Care

• Each wounded member of the sept costs 3 surplus to care for - if this is not spent, their wounds do not improve.

Work on the Assembly-Ship

• This can only be done while you have access to the assembly-ship (presumably this is in the Volume during the Blue Season, but if you move it or something I guess it's there now). 
• Spend any amount of surplus, plus any amount of rare resources. Gain surplus/2+resources Glory and add that many points to the tally of your assembly. Someday it will be finished. 

Attract Heroes

•  Roll 1d6+[reliquaries] on my secret table of weird freak heroes. The rolled result will arrive for your next adventure, piloted by another player, and then wander away. 

Adventure 

• Sending characters out from the sept-vessel costs 1 surplus for each character sent. Adventuring NPCs are equipped as you choose, with available loadouts based on the Weapons level of your sept. 
•  Further rules for adventure in Machine Space will be presented in part 2.

Raid 

• Sending characters out from the sept-vessel costs 1 surplus for each character sent. Adventuring NPCs are equipped as you choose, with available loadouts based on the Weapons level of your sept.  
• Roll (1d20 - the target's weaponry - 1 for every raider you bring with you) / 3. This is the number of turns you have before the defender is able to organize a response. 
• Further procedures for raiding are not relevant to the topic of this post. Hurt them and steal their things. You get it.

Sept Certifier chooses to spend all 6 of its surplus to Work on the Assembly-Ship, along with a beautiful set of malachite-and-cobalt plates they pulled from the Hanging Gardens. They gain 6/2+1 = 4 Glory and add 4 points to the tally of Assembly Elegiast.

The population of a sept-vessel comes from their Glory - acclaimed septs attract new marriages, adoptions, and hangers-on, while failing vessels soon split. At the end of each turn, Glory is tallied:

• +1 for each of a vessel's Reliquaries
• +1 if the sept defeated a significant enemy
• and another +1 for victory against all odds 
• +1 if the sept befriended a significant character
• and another +1 if they were an enemy when the turn began 
• +1 for succeeding in a raid despite making contact with the enemy
• +5 if a member of the sept was acclaimed Imperious
• +5 if a source of a rare resource is discovered and brought back to the assembly
• +∞ for the completion of your assembly-ship 
• -2 for each death among the sept 

Glory may also be lost as a consequence of raids, as part of weregild, or as a result of unpleasant events, general chaos, or other GM meddling. Glory begins at 0 - it can become negative.

At the end of a season, roll 1d10-(9-Glory) for the number of new sept members. This cannot be negative. 

Sept Certifier's prior Glory was -3. They gain 1 for their Reliquary and another 4 from their work on the good ship Elegiast, bringing them to 2. They roll 8 on 1d10-7 - a single person comes to join the sept, bringing them to a total population of 37. Time ticks on in the endless structure.

GLOGmas 2025: Crafting the Gu-poison

Merry Christmas, Grace :)

I was looking through your class list and got struck by the Kodoku Master, who traps all manner of bugs in a jar and shakes them around until only one survives, containing the Vital Energy and also Poison of all those it defeated. Then, I saw you mention that you would have preferred to have a full bug-tormenting simulator to attach the class to.

grace says: i would love if the kodoku jar was like a little Battle Royale island where the bugs can hide, lay ambushes, and find weapons and shit. And the battle takes place over multiple days, with little battle reports when you take a rest

So, here's a full bug-tormenting simulator. 

The kodoku master owns a killing jar, where poisonous bugs are sent to war against each other. Each bug in the killing jar has a Rating, which determines its save DC and the damage of its poison, and a set of Traits.

A rating 1 bug has a poison save DC of 10, and deals 1d6 damage when killed and used as poison (by default, it must be eaten). For every 5 points of Rating (at 5, 10, etc) the DC increases by 2 (12, 14, 16) and the damage by 1d6. The maximum Rating for a mundane bug is 20.

Bugs are set into a Leaderboard, arranged from highest to lowest Rating. Each night, as you rest, they kill and die: roll twice on the Leaderboard and the stronger of the two kills the weaker, absorbing one of its traits (chosen at random) and half of its Rating. 

For each level in kodoku master, you may have 4 bugs active in your killing jar. Jar modifications can be bought for whatever "a lot of money" is in your system of choice, and consumables can be bought for "a little bit of money" except for the Black Lotus, which costs "a lot of money" again. At dusk and dawn, you collect a new bug with 1d6 Rating and one randomly-rolled trait. Specialized or multi-trait bugs can be purchased, earned, or stolen from other masters of the poisonous arts (or dungeons or something).

Traits

1. Ambusher - this poison can be applied to a weapon and applied to a target on a successful hit.
2. Armed - the bug gains +5 to its rating only for the purposes of combat between bugs.
3. Paralyzing - when this bug is defeated, its killer loses Rating equal to half of this bug's. When someone fails the save against this poison, they are immobilized for a number of minutes equal to the damage roll.
4. Hallucinogenic - this bug's opponents have their Ratings inverted while fighting it. When someone fails the save against this poison, they hallucinate for a number of minutes equal to the damage roll.
5. Inhaled - this poison may be turned into a dust, taking effect when breathed in. 
6. Predatory - if the bug fights and wins, it then immediately fights again. They will only do this once per night.
7. Shelled - if this bug would die, it survives but loses this trait. 
8. Fatal - this poison deals d10s instead of d6s.
9. Harmless - this poison deals d4s instead of d6s. If this bug would defeat another, 50% of the time it loses anyway.
10. Slow - this poison takes 5 minutes to take effect. If this bug would defeat another, 50% of the time nothing happens.
11. Obvious - this bug is forced to fight if the number above or below it on the leaderboard is rolled. Poison made from this bug has a strong scent and visible color when combined with food and drink.
12. Pacifist - if this bug would defeat another, nothing happens. The poison from this bug heals half the amount that it would otherwise harm.

Jar Modifications

1. Inverted - when two bugs fight, the one with the lower Rating kills the one with the higher.
2. Hiding Place - a bug of your choice is concealed. If it would be forced to fight, reroll. If the bug has the ambusher trait, it will still fight as normal but only if it would win.
3. Tag-Team Ring - roll 3 dice instead of 2 on the leaderboard; the first two rolled fight the third. If their total Rating is higher, they win, splitting the Rating and traits of their opponent between them. If their Rating is lower, they both lose, and the victor gains half the Rating of each and one trait from each.
4. Landmines - each round, before fights are rolled, the bug with the lowest Rating dies. 
5. Radioactive Pebble - each round, a randomly-chosen bug swaps one of its traits with a randomly-rolled trait from the list above.
6. Champion's Crown - the bug with the highest Rating gains an extra 3 Rating each night.

Consumables 

1. Poison Powder - flip a coin for each bug: on tails, it dies. On heads, its Rating increases by 5.
2. Target Dye - choose a bug, and only roll one die in later rounds to determine the targeted bug's opponent.
3. Mitosis Gel - a bug divides into two, each with the same traits but with half the Rating.
4. Tiny Sword - a chosen bug gains the armed trait.
5. Gene Needle - lets you pull a trait from a bug, and inject it into another.
6. Black Lotus - a chosen bug gains the otherwise inaccessible ontological trait - its poison affects ghosts, stones, and other nonliving things.

Small Rules for Lanthanide Horizon (Dissection, Climbing/Caving)

Usually, I shift between genre with each campaign - but I'm now two failed Navigator sept campaigns deep and still haven't stopped thinking about them, probably because of the. failing...

As a break from three hundred years in the mines making Lanthanide Horizon hexcrawls I can't post because all my theoretical players read this, here are some leetle rules-modules I stapled to the latter campaign and barely used. 🙂

(later - I want to alter the Navigator backgrounds (i don't like Skald or Ropemaker), rewrite the Navigator septs so they can be used as NPC factions, and write some kind of generator for their Imperious management-kings) 

Machine Dissection

Ripped off from this system by Benign Brown Beast, but inverted - assigning dice, then rolling them, instead of rolling them before being assigned. 

When you move to salvage, pool 2+[INT bonus] d10s - with a relevant skill, add 2 more. Before rolling, divide them as you wish between three categories:

• Receive answers to [dice] questions about this machine and others like it (HD, AC, attacks, purpose, etc).
• Obtain minor components - roll all dice in this category and sum them together. Add one to the first digit of the sum to determine how many slots are collected, and the last digit keys what component is obtained. Any results that say "either X or Y", the player chooses. (For example, “26” is 2+1 = 3 slots of component #6)
• Take [best] on a secret table of attempts to recover a major component - a machine-specific tool that could be repaired, with work. (OK I realized that this is kind of a pain in the neck, "the table" is honestly probably just. 1-5 you really do it wrong and the dying machine catches your hand in some gears and crushes it, 6-8 you get Nothing, 9-10 you get "broken component that could do Thing The Machine Does In Its Statblock if you fix it) 

Minor Component Table

1. Wire (either stout copper or beautiful fiber-optic).

2. Either intact batteries, or manganese dioxide (flammable, used as a dark green pigment).

3. Propylene glycol, used as a coolant and lubricant - startlingly, somehow, safe for human consumption.

4. Jumbles of small springs and synthetic tendon, or fragments of soft solder.

5. Elbow-sized servomotors, or shin-long electric pistons.

6. Contact adhesive, or screws and bolts.

7. Multicolored plastic insulating sheaths, or dice-sized blocks of graphite.

8. Strings of status LEDs, or single lightbulbs.

9. Lengths of metal skeleton, or external plates.

0. A clicking mechanical eye, or the tangled-bismuth brain - a piece you can’t understand, but the men of the Vault will buy. ("the men of the Vault" are a local group of Foreign Types - more generally you could just say "[...] understand, but have value as decoration and trophies.")

Climbing/Caving

Also ripped off, this time from Sam Sorensen's Lowlife, and this blog post by Xenophon, and the classic Veins of the Earth system. I've been alternating between this and a stat-damage-mapped-segment thing with every campaign and I'm not happy with either of them, but this one is faster which makes it better.

When climbing/caving, roll 1d6 - looking for a 4-in-6 normally, or a 2-in-6 under poor conditions (evil overhang wall, evil your-head-is-touching-the-wall-and-ceiling-simultaneously tunnel). 

Add 1 to your chances if:

• you have an already-set rope line
• you have 15 or more STR (for climbing) or DEX (for caving)
• you have a theoretically relevant skill (if you literally have Climbing or Going Through Tunnels, add 2) 
• you've had at least ten minutes to study the route

and subtract one if:

• you have at least 5 filled inventory slots
• you have something in one of your hands
• you are in darkness
• the ascent is, in some way, out to get you (a general situational penalty for icy climbs, rubble-filled tunnels, or other such things)

If you pass, you're good! Probably. Reroll every 10 minutes or if your situation ever suddenly changes.

If you fail, roll 1d4 - this is how many quarters (25/50/75/99.9) of the obstacle you made it through before either falling on a climb, or becoming trapped in a tunnel. If you have and are using sufficient rope and pitons, you fall only 1 quarter and take that much fall damage before becoming caught. 

If you ever have to crawl vertically, do the math for your chances at both and then roll a single d6. Experience the wonders of falling 30 feet down a pipe and getting stuck still 80 feet up.

(this system removes the large tables of possible failures in Lowlife and Veins. Instead, I get to build on this basic system by keying climbs and tunnels - electrified walls, pipes flooding with boiling water, or places with added or changed failure penalties - "fall one segment before being caught in the moving gears", "fall, and also wake up the robots that live in the walls", etc) 

Sunless Horizon Beta 2.3 Release

Commissioned from Scrap Princess

excited screeching

I've been posting about Sunless Horizon for about a year, and after finally getting it playtested, have it ready for a wider release. Since this'll be the landing point for new people to the game, I've also put together a setting recap.

Sunless Horizon Beta 2.3

Despite all the stuff I've said about Sunless Horizon, I've never talked about the system.

Sunless Horizon is classless and levelless, with character progression entirely through equipment. Its core is a die step system, where your stats determine Check Dice that rolled against static target numbers.

Combat is working off a simultaneous resolution system, and instead of HP or an abstract wound system, damage for the PCs goes directly to a large Wound Table, similar to the GLOG's Death & Dismemberment.

Most of the rules are exploration-focused; a pointcrawl base expanded with rest actions, pathfinding, and a Difficult Terrain system for adding more gameplay to climbs and crawls. 

The game is currently mechanically complete (hopefully), but is missing content such as generators. Currently, there is a 4-entry bestiary and 2 d6 Obstacle tables, mostly for use as examples. Later releases will be focused on patching holes and developing these tools.

Click on the cover to take a look, and feel free to tell me what you think in the comments.

Introduction

Sunless Horizon is a SF-horror RPG set on the worldship Ein Sof; the last sanctuary of humanity at the end of time.

The worldship's AI, Keter, has created new creatures to serve it, working deep in the most inhospitable corners of Ein Sof to slow the machine's decay. Some of them have escaped, creating new societies far from Keter's eyes. 

The players are members of these societies, sent out into Ein Sof's halls to hunt for needed resources.

Peoples of the World

The people of Ein Sof come in many forms.

Kaiva are tall and thin, with large faces and knotted, bulging veins. Their skin is translucent - under it is a shimmering silver second skin, which absorbs radiation to balance out their tremendous food requirement. In times of stress their veins pulse, and they discard tremendous amounts of energy in a single fast movement, damaging themselves in the process. However, the energy stored for these actions leaves little for the body to use to repair itself.

Seeleh are heavy and strong, with their bodies arranged radially - 3 faces, 6 legs, and 6 arms, all emerging from a reinforced central spine. They can carry more than other phenotypes, and their multiple lungs let them last longer without air. However, they are more susceptible to Keter's words than the other phenotypes.

Iklen are strange and graceful. Their ridged skin changes color constantly - some of these patterns force eyes to slide off them, as if they didn't exist. Those ridges are covered in small scales, that shed from the Iklen and drift through the air. If inhaled, they change the emotions of the sufferer. Iklen move slowly and inefficiently, as if dancing. When surprised, this dance ends, and they must consider their next moves.

Ayir are small and fragile, with gargantuan eyes. Their light weight and small size helps them navigate difficult terrain, but make them more easily injured. Even when they sleep, some of their brain stays active, letting them move and act.

Godhead

Keter's only goal is to keep humanity alive and safe in their Empyreans while He works towards the completion of the Ishtar Program - opening a gate to a stable new universe, where humanity will rise once more.

However, the Program may take tens of thousands of years of technological advancement and failed attempts, and Keter's machines would fail someday. But, while He can run out of metal, living servants could sustain themselves indefinitely.

But despite Keter's best efforts, Ein Sof is still collapsing. Many of the biotech bays used to create these new servants now lie abandoned and unreachable, following their old orders. These lost thousands formed their own societies, and now live in the ship like parasites. 

Those were not His only followers, however. The machine Disciples of this silicon god still stalk through the halls, staving off the ship's failure and hunting those who have escaped His grasp.

Societies of Ein Sof

Superpowers

The Navigator Houses

The Houses are an industrial state, led by hereditary nobility. They have only just arrived to this part of the worldship, after being driven from their homes by the Disciples. 

In their territory, peace is kept through force. Holes are burned through walls, lights are strung up across new roads, and dissenters are strung up with them.

They trade with the Oasis Kingdoms, but plan to soon solidify their influence. If things go their way, tanks will roll through the Kingdoms' streets within months. 

Of course, there's no guarantee things will go the Houses' way. The Lord Navigators, each head of a House, are only held apart by a Regent. Border skirmishes are becoming more common. 

The Houses will go to war. The only question is who it will be with.

The Oasis Kingdoms

The Kingdoms were here first. They have control of most of this region, with each kingdom built on top of an important resource, whether that's power, water, farmland, or rare resources. Their authority was unquestioned - there has not been war for generations.

But now the Houses are on their doorstep, and the Kingdoms are forced to trade food and art for guns and time. 

Minor Factions

Ghoul Nests

Ghouls are born from human stock, meant for the Empyreans. Some stage of the cloning process was, when viewed through Keter's unknowable perceptions, deemed a failure, and they were released into Ein Sof to survive on their own.

Some nests turned to raiding towns and attacking traders. Now, both the Houses and the Kingdoms see them as a threat; that they are to be shot, and their nests are to be burned.

People of the Sea

Sea People shelter in the remaining towers of the Coolant Seas, farming the meager food that can be grown in its blighted water. This resource leaves them targeted by other groups, including the Navigator Houses. 

To protect themselves, the People of the Sea have turned their home chambers into trap-webbed nightmares. Despite this, outsiders are still more than happy to throw themselves into the grinder in the hopes of finding food.

Skinborne

Skinborne groups avoid Ein Sof's internals for its cold, sterile skin. They travel nomadically, floating through space in improvised voidcraft. The rare times they enter the ship are for violent raids, gathering food and components before fleeing. 

All these resources are being gathered for one purpose - completing the Ark, an escape ship made from a single engine of Ein Sof. They say the Garden World is passing by soon, and the Ark can bring them there. 

Sustainer Cells 

To the Sustainer Cells, everything is temporary. They say that someday, no matter how far in the future that is, the world will be safe. To keep themselves alive over this vast gulf of time, they commandeered many of Ein Sof's cryobays.

Now, most of their population rests, while those still awake struggle to keep them alive. This lack of manpower has forced them to focus their society on efficiency, creating a 4-caste system. Personality has been eroded, with Sustainer society expecting newly-awoken members of these castes to act identically to those they've replaced.

Walker-Tribes

To keep themselves safe, the Tribes stay on the move. Their cities were uprooted and retrofitted into sealed walkers, each one hiding a secret - a functioning seed AI the Tribes hope to grow into a weapon to topple Keter from His throne.

However, the seed must be kept safe. Infohazards and hacking attempts can (and have) possessed them, and sent cities marching off cliffs.

Independents

Many tiny groups, unassociated with any faction, hide within Ein Sof. Runaway nobles from unknown nations, dragging their servants on a doomed quest for independence, strange cults following dream-quests from decoded transmissions, quiet villages, and a thousand thousand other mysteries, all (eventually) randomly generated.