Station

ORBITAL PLAYKIT
BY JACK HARRISON
v1.0, FEBRUARY 2021
The Station.
VISUALS

Name:
Your home, unique among the stars—protect it well

MAP

THREATS

MINOR CHARACTERS

YOUR MAP IS NOT A COMPLETE REPRESENTATION — LEAVE BLANK SPACES. WRITE A ONE-LINE DESCRIPTION OF ANY
CREATE OR MODIFY LOCATIONS ON THE MAP AS YOU PLAY. MINOR CHARACTERS YOU CREATE DURING PLAY.
 TRUTHS
THIS MUCH IS TRUE
The following things are true about our community:
• We are a neutral station, widely recognised as
unaffiliated with either side of the ongoing war.
• The station is much older than our little
community and much of it is unexplored.
• We have sufficient resources to ensure we
meet all our residents’ basic needs.
• We celebrate and value difference in many forms,
both personal and cultural.
• We operate open borders, accepting new arrivals
with compassion and providing for them as equal
residents.
• The world outside is hostile and treacherous,
so we avoid leaving our station wherever possible.
These truths can be threatened over the course of play.
VISUALS
CHOOSE 2-3 STRUCTURAL FEATURES
white plasteel, yellow handrails, modular bulkheads,
integrated compartments, hexagonal blast doors,
fractal architecture, observation windows, artificial
sky, padded bulkheads, metal grating, rusted steel,
rough stone, stained glass, light bridges, nuclear
reactor, smouldering furnace, swirling nebula,
asteroid field, wrecked spaceships, strand aurora
CHOOSE 2-3 THINGS WE FOUND
abandoned militaria, defunct corporate branding,
battle damage, garbled warning messages, levers and
buttons, neat touchscreens, monochrome CRTs,
holograms, fluorescent lighting, bioluminescence,
mould and spores, moss and lichen, grasping vines,
sprawling roots, crystal growths, winding corridors,
flooded pools, glowing sigils, burning braziers
CHOOSE 2-3 MARKS WE MADE
habitation modules, makeshift homes, community
gardens, shared kitchens, paste dispensers, maps
and signs, hand-painted banners, neon lights, soft
fabrics, tropical plants, painted routes, piles of trash
THREATS
CHOOSE THREE IMPENDING THREATS
• hundreds of military starships are using a nearby
moon as a staging area
• a critically-damaged military cruiser is requesting
docking privledges and emergency support
• the scion of a powerful aristocratic family was just
shot dead on our station and nobody knows why
• star-crossed lovers from either side of the war are
hiding out here while hunted by their superiors
• rowdy soldiers from both sides of the war have
simultaneously taken shore leave here
• military scientists established a secret research
base somewhere on our station
• we cut a deal with outside forces to fix a critical
system and now they're calling their debt
• a powerful crime-lord plans to seize control of this
station in a dramatic, violent coup
• a weaver of the strand with incredible abilities and a
long list of enemies is joining our community
• one of our major suppliers has just been taken over by
a predatory interstellar corporation
• prospectors discovered an asteroid belt rich with
valuable di-hydrogen fuel nearby
• a rare, valuable artefact was just discovered in our
station's vaults, and everyone wants it
• something deep and ancient in the station stirs, and
things are getting weird
• residents have been disappearing, emerging days later
as new members of a strange cult