Brainstorming an introduction
Gradient Decent is a module for Mothership RPG. Set inside an Android Manufacturing Facility with a powerful rouge AI in charge making it the perfect setting for the sci-fi horror genre! I’ve tested out a short one-shot session using this module and am currently planning on giving my long-term campaign players a nice taste of the riches within the facility.
Some ways to get into the story of Gradient Decent consist of using infiltrator droids, starting your players in the freezer, or by drip-feeding rumors of the artifacts the wealth they can bring but I’m in need of some badassery for my players because its been a while since we’ve had a session. Therefore I think the most applicable versions to steal from are the rumors and the infiltrator droid routes.
Below I’ve created some tables to organise my ideas for either, feel free to use them if you’d like:
Rumors
Roll 1d10 for rumors:
- They say Cloudbank churns out more than just androids.
- Bringing back a relic from that facility will have you free for the rest of your life.
- The blockade is easy to get by if you can pay up, but leaving is a different problem.
- Have you ever been touched by the soul of an android?
- Cloudbanks databanks holds accurate information about entire systems.
- Apparently some big corpo’s were based off of prototypes found at cloudbank.
- A group of troubleshooters speaking about their job at the blockade.
- There’s an AI overlord running cloudbank.
- rumor claims the rogue AI within Cloudbank is harvesting something from the anybody that gets trapped inside.
- The players are directly requested to go to Cloudbank.
I definitely didn’t fudge any dice rolls for this one but I’m sure you can guess what I got. I plan on having the player get a request to raid a ship from the barricade to find an important relic for a mega-corp and maybe find an extra one to give them a taste of the credits to come.
Infiltrator Droid
Roll 1d10 for Infiltrator Droids:
- An overly eager crewmate offers unsolicited assistance during repairs, constantly hovering around key personnel.
- A lone survivor from a recent disaster inexplicably possesses knowledge or skills exceeding their apparent background.
- A volunteer for a dangerous mission readily accepts high risks, displaying a lack of self-preservation instincts.
- A seemingly perfect employee excels in all tasks but exhibits minimal emotional response or social interaction.
- A technician assigned to fix a malfunctioning system displays unusual calm and familiarity with advanced circuitry.
- Security guards discover a seemingly innocuous malfunction in an alarm system, but upon closer inspection, it appears deliberately tampered with.
- A team captain pushes for a risky course of action that aligns suspiciously well with an unknown adversary’s goals.
- A crew member receives a cryptic message seemingly innocuous, but upon deciphering, reveals coded instructions.
- An unexpected witness appears just in time to corroborate a suspicious story, but scrutiny reveals inconsistencies in their account.
- In a desperate battle, an opponent displays an inhuman ability to shrug off injuries that would incapacitate any human.
And I rolled a 1 for the Infiltrator Droid list which is going to be an overly eager crewmate offers unsolicited assistance during repairs, constantly hovering around key personnel. so it looks like there’s gonna be a twist mid-mission with a crewmate.
Non Player Characters
I’ve created some main characters and side characters that might be necessary for this mission and might tie in nicely into the general theme of ensemble of space truckers and private mercenaries that we have in the party. Let me list out what we needed for this simple start-up mission, I’ve also generated their descriptions using this generator:
- Facilitator
- Information Brokers
- Hired mercenaries
- Merchants
Facilitator
Our facilitator is going to be an employee working hard to climb the corporate ladder by using any means necessary. She does not want the company name to show on any headlines because of this job and therefore the players need to be hush about any details.
She is a Scientist. Her stats are:0
STR: 29, SPD: 27, INT: 46, CMB: 28
SAN: 43, FER: 25, BOD: 24
She has 2 wounds with 13 health each and starts with 2 stress.
She’s carrying: Hazard Suit (AP 5), Flamethrower (1 charge), Pain Pills, Electronic Tool Set, as well as a Manual: Treat Your Rifle Like A Lady and 140 credits.
Her skills are Geology, Ecology, Planetology; and also Zoology.
On her uniform, she wears a “Take My Life (Please)” patch.
Information Brokers
Because their main center of operations is currently Prospero’s Dream from “A Pound of Flesh” I want to use Angus from the Canyonheavy market in some way. I want my players to have a definite chance of collecting information therefor I’ve devised the table below to sync in with the mechanics I use in our sandbox campaign. To be precise we need this info:
- Hacking into Volkov Security Solutions for information on the layout of the ship.
- Entry methods and useful contacts at Canyonheavy Market.
- Sourcing equipment needed for this heist.
| Quality | Percentage Chance | Information Gained |
| Low Quality (Misinformation) | 30% | Wild rumors, outdated information, or blatant lies. May even mislead the players in the wrong direction. (e.g., “The crashed spaceship was carrying a legendary weapon! Head south to the Forbidden Zone.”) |
| Medium Quality (Partial Truth) | 50% | Some truth mixed with inaccuracies or incomplete details. Requires further investigation or confirmation. (e.g., “There was a crash in the southern wastelands, but nobody knows what happened. Scavengers haven’t returned.”) |
| High Quality (Actionable Intel) | 20% | Useful and accurate information that directly aids the players. (e.g., “A heavily guarded convoy left for the southern ruins a week ago, carrying salvage from the crashed vessel.”) |
Generating transport
As for the spacecraft that I need to prep for this, I’ll be using the spacecraft from the shipbreakers toolkit as reference and asset packs from 2-minute tabletop for map design. Keep track of the blog for the session review and the map downloads! I’ll be creating maps for:
- Map for the Raider
- Patrol craft as the main map
- Docking port as a point of entry
- A version of the Patrol craft with a docked boarding skiff
It’s messy, I know
Hey everyone! This article might be a little rough around the edges, but hey, that’s half the fun of session prep, right? Originally, I planned to delve into the horror elements I crafted for this Mothership mission. However, since this is only my second time homebrewing a Mothership adventure, I decided to save that juicy stuff for the review article.
Did you find any spark of inspiration in this article? Maybe it helped you brainstorm ideas for your own Mothership missions? Let me know in the comments below! I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions.
If you found this article interesting make sure to check out the rest of our blog, I’m sure there’ll be something that itches some part of your brain!
