Review: Lonelog

This popped up in my YouTube feed and intrigued me enough to download the free 68-page PDF from itch.io here. The author is Roberto Bisceglie.

In a nutshell: Concise standard notation for recording solo game sessions. The player is intended to use this format to capture mechanical game elements while adding as much or as little narrative as desired. It's free to use under a Creative Commons licence.

What You Get

A format-agnostic shorthand for recording your solo sessions. Why would you want to use it? It's fast, it's searchable in digital formats, it acts as a shared notation for sharing game writeups between players. The core of the notation, which can be expanded considerably, is:

@ for player actions.

? for oracle questions.

d: for mechanics rolls.

-> for oracle or dice results.

=> for consequences.

In use, it looks a lot like Markdown, in fact it uses some Markdown features like heading levels, although if you're using something like Obsidian you need to flag Lonelog entries as code blocks to avoid the parser getting confused.

This basic system is then expanded with additional (optional) layers and structures, multiple examples, best practices, templates, and notes on adapting Lonelog to your favourite system. In particular these add tools for tracking recurring NPCs, plot threads, clocks, random tables or generators, meta notes (which a programmer would call comments) and whatnot.

As usual, the examples are the best explanation of the system in use, showing how it works with different levels of narrative detail.

At the end of the document, there's a quick reference sheet 

What I Think

You'll have seen me moving gradually towards something like this over the last few years, with shorthand such as "d6w=11 SR" for "d6 with Wild Die, score 11, success with a raise", and more recently experimenting with Obsidian as a notebook app; so I'm positively disposed to the idea, as for years I've been wrestling with how to record the mechanical elements without burying the narrative.

My first attempts were using different colours and later putting mechanical detail in italics, but those were unsatisfactory. My current method of splitting the mechanics out into a separate section works well enough, but maybe this would be more elegant?

I'll have to try it and see; it'll be a few weeks before I get around to that, as with some travel upcoming I have a few posts already in the can, so look for this appearing sometime in mid to late March.

Aslan Route 35.5: Islands in the Rift

Previously, on the Aslan Route... Escaping the wreck of the Deepnight Endeavour, the Macavity finds herself in the Zuflucht system, on the extreme edge of the Islands Cluster. While her cargo of emergency low berths is unloaded, the local Imperial officials (such as they are) invite the crew aboard their orbital station to debrief them on recent events...

The next few posts contain spoilers for Great Rift Adventure 1: Islands in the Rift, but as it was published in 2018 I won't hold back.

Zuflucht, 1108 Weeks 43-44

The Macavity's crew are met at the airlock by a woman in Scout Service uniform and a (non-regulation) headscarf, who Mazun knows as Sunita Hamed; he remembers her from his deep cover training in the Covert Survey Bureau, always reliable and polite, and – if he remembers correctly – unusually religious for a citizen of the Imperium, who are by and large a secular lot. They were in the same group of trainees, but ordered off in different directions.

“Mazun,” she smiles, “Good to see you again! What are you doing this far out in the Rift?” And to the others, as an explanation: “We knew each other on Batav! What are the odds? Once we’ve finished the debrief, I hope we can catch up socially.” Mazun notes she carefully doesn’t specify exactly how they knew each other, leaving that open for whatever story they concoct between them.

She addresses the crew more formally, with Mazun translating for Kharrash, who stands blinking dumbly throughout.

“I’m afraid this will take some time, we’re short-handed so I need to do all the interviews myself. Let me reassure you, you’re not under any suspicion of wrongdoing, but… well, when you turn up with this many survivors in low berths and you say some of them have some kind of unknown disease, we need to give you a complete physical and do some detailed interviews. Debriefing you will take a few days. There are reports to make, statements to clarify, and the ship’s logs will need to be looked over. Then, you should expect a second round of interviews to answer any supplemental questions.”

“I’ll start with Captain Ashran, and his interview is likely to be the longest; I tell you that so you won’t think anything is wrong because of that.” She gestures around her.

“As you can see, this is a small station; officially we’re a naval base, but actually we have one docking berth and a dozen or so people, mostly Navy men, but with myself and another Scout as cultural liaison. I must ask you to stay on the station while we work through the formalities, after that you’ll be free to go.”

Once Mazun’s debriefing is over, Hamed opens up a new discussion with him in private; she needs help.

She explains that the Islands Cluster is important because it is one of the main crossing points for the Great Rift; trouble here could cause undesirable delays to Imperial communications. So, the Imperium maintains intelligence assets in the region. One such asset is the Perfect Stranger, a Far Trader like the Macavity, crewed by a mixture of undercover Navy and Scout personnel; like the Macavity, her mission is to embed herself in the local culture and observe, gathering raw data, analysing it, and sending it back to the Imperium. None of this is illegal, as such; but it must have trodden on someone’s toes.

A few months ago, two members of the crew arrived on Zuflucht. They were dead, apparently shot by a laser weapon. The bodies were shipped in low berths aboard a civilian vessel transiting the Rift; there were no personal effects, and the documentation simply gives their names and the point of origin: Amondiage.

Hamed sighs.

“I’m afraid I’m transferring your activation under Scout Service Directive 119 section 12.” She goes on to outline the mission:

• The primary objective is to take possession of the Perfect Stranger and return her to Zuflucht with her data cores intact. If absolutely necessary, the ship is expendable, but the data cores are not.
• The secondary objective is to discover the fate of the crew and render assistance if possible, but this must not be allowed to compromise the primary objective.
• Mazun will be given paperwork proving that he is entitled to take possession of the ship, as well as passcodes and so forth, including those for a line of credit with the government of Amondiage – using this will clearly signal to Amondiage that he is connected with the Imperium, and abusing it will eventually result in it being withdrawn. It is monitored.
• Operating expenses will be paid, and there is a sizeable payment for each crew member on successful completion of the mission.
• There is a spare collapsible fuel tank for the Perfect Stranger at Zuflucht, which as it was designed for a ship of the same class, will fit the Macavity. This will be needed for the jump from Zuflucht to Gloire, and the extra range will be useful in the Cluster.
• At the end of the mission, Hamed can arrange for the Macavity to be transported back to the Imperium, or the crew can stay in the Islands if they prefer – she can find work for them. Meanwhile, she will send messages to anyone they need to explain their absence to.

“Now then,” she says, “What are we going to tell your crew, so that I can back you up?”

GM Notes

No session last Saturday because it was Valentine's Day; some of us are married, and would like to stay that way. So rather then spend half the next session on an info dump, I wrote an introduction (above) and a handout summarising the Islands Cluster (not shown) and circulated that to give the players something to mull over during the break.

The group's last adventure was Great Rift Adventure 2: Deepnight Endeavour. This is Great Rift Adventure 1: Islands in the Rift, which has merit, but won’t occupy them for more than a few sessions. In the adventure as written, the Perfect Stranger is a Type R subbie, but another Far Trader works better for this campaign.

Putting the handout together revealed that the Traveller Wiki is diverging from Charted Space as I know it, and the Islands Cluster canon (Classic Traveller Adventure 5 and Mongoose Great Rift Adventure 1) as previously published. I'm starting to think I'd be better off with another setting, the Official Traveller Universe is starting to make me feel cramped and constrained.

Still, that's a decision I don't need to take for a year or two yet.

Fringe Space: Makavan 006 - Find, Part 1

I go checkin' out the reports; diggin' up the dirt.
You get to meet all sorts, in this line of work.
- Dire Straits, Private Investigations

New Hope, Late March '01: Find

Makavan reluctantly paid the cover charge to enter the nightclub and headed for the bar. He'd heard on the street that his quarry came in here sometimes, and you had to speculate to accumulate. He put on his Old Money manners like a comfortable old jacket to blend in, leaning back on the bar and nursing his drink while he looked around.

A pair of upmarket xeogs swayed over to him and smouldered at him, one from each side.

"Hello handsome," one purred, using the noise of the music as an excuse to get close enough to his ear to brush against it. "What's a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?"

"Working," he said, and to avoid matters developing in a direction which would cost him a night's diligent searching: "I'm looking for this guy, have you seen him? I hear he sometimes comes in here." He showed them the holocube the razor had given him. They made a show of examining it, using that as an excuse to leave their long blue fingers resting on his just a little longer than they needed to.

"I think we've seen him," one said. "Yes," the other confirmed, "In the Green's at this end of Pub-and-Rec. A couple of nights ago. He was boring. Are you going to be boring, handsome? We're vid stars, we can make you famous."

"Probably," he sighed, wondering what kind of vids they made. Probably the kind he wouldn't want his family seeing. "I'm on a clock here."

"Your loss," they pouted; one winked, the other laughed, and they wandered off, arm in arm, in search of easier prey.

Makavan wandered out into the night. The transit might still be running, and it was worth checking out the Pub & Rec district; he could get lucky. It had to happen sometime.

Status at End March '01

• IRD/DRD: +5 (Find Job, pending completion), +1 (defeat opponent), +1 (successful interaction), -3 (ship upkeep). Total -1.
• 5150 Stats: Rep: 5. Current IRD: -1 (roll 5 so no penalty). Lifetime IRD: 10.
• SWADE Stats: Bennies: 3. Wounds: 0. Advances: None.

GM Notes

Having survived the attempted mugging, we now turn our attention to finding the hishen we're after, using the rules on pp. 40-41 of 5150 No Limits Maiden Voyage. Essentially this means resolving 1d3 PEFs, any of which may turn into a fight; the ones which don't may generate clues, and once you collect enough clues, you find the target NPC. 

We had a short but detailed fight last time, so I decide to use SWADE Quick Encounters (p. 134) for any Confrontations and Networking (p. 133) for interacting with NPCs, with a Raise representing a successful "further interaction" and thus a clue.

The dice give me one PEF, a pair of Xeog Shakers, which given the above and the fact it does not result in a Confrontation don't need to be detailed further, so I roll Simon's Persuasion for Networking and as he has Wealth d8 I make a Wealth roll to gain a +2 on that roll; success, so Wealth drops to d6, and the Persuasion roll Aces as well, giving me a 10 for a Success and a Raise. First Clue found.

However, I now need to roll 1d3 and score the number of Clues I have (1) or less to find the NPC; I roll a 3, and must try again next month. This is the downside of Find missions, they can take several months and you don't get paid until the end.

Another short one this time, but that's okay, we're not ending world hunger here, just killing an hour or two doing something slightly more creative than watching TV.

Books in January 2026

 

In my early days of blogging, as well as writing about gaming, I discussed what I'd read. I've decided to try that again this year, and joined Storygraph to help me keep track. Let's start with a quick look back at January...

The Iron Hand of Mars by Lindsey Davies. Number four in the Marcus Didius Falco stories, which follow the adventures of a Roman private informer in the first century AD. Under cover of delivering a new standard to a legion in Germany, Falco must investigate the legion's loyalty, find out what happened to a missing Legate, and broker peace with a rebel Gaul. Despite the complex mission, I found this one dragged a bit compared to the first three, which are best thought of as a trilogy as they follow a single story arc centred on a conspiracy against the Emperor; but it was still enjoyable enough to lure me on to number five. If you're new to Falco, start with The Silver Pigs.

Assorted Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. These follow the self-styled Murderbot, a security android which has hacked its own operating system to remove Asimov's Laws of Robotics, and just wants to be left alone to watch soap operas, but keeps getting dragged into lethal intrigue and conspiracies. Mostly novellas; I enjoyed them all, but Wells is at her best when telling novel length stories such as Network Effect, where her worldbuilding and characterisation have room to breathe. If you're new to Murderbot, start with All Systems Red, but the series doesn't really start motoring until the third novella, Rogue Protocol.

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van dek Kolk. How severe trauma rewires the brain and body, what treatments are most effective, and how all this was discovered. This book held a number of surprises for me, including abused children greatly outnumbering war veterans as PTSD diagnoses, how much politics gets in the way of real science and treatment, and how simple the most effective therapies are - yoga, for example, and controlled eye movement.

Simple Sabotage Field Manual. This was originally written by the OSS in World War II, to show how people in occupied Europe could conduct a million tiny acts of untraceable sabotage against their occupiers, none individually significant, but collectively making everything just that little bit harder for the invaders. The recommendations are surprisingly similar to everyday life in a large corporation.

Aslan Route 35: Deepnight Endeavour, Part 2

Previously, on the Aslan Route... Misjumping into deep space, the crew of the Macavity find the wreck of a huge survey vessel, where factions of the surviving crew compete for resources and an alien infection is gradually turning them all into zombies. But they have a plan...

Spoilers ahead...

Void 8, 1108 Weeks 40-42

Mazun decides the first order of business is to issue an all-hands call on the internal PA system, explaining that his ship is here to rescue the survivors and there is room for everyone, but it will take some time so please be patient. As the point of this is crowd control, he carefully doesn't tell anyone where the ship is, and given where the Macavity docked and where the survivors are, none of them can actually see it, though Mazun suspects the bridge crew knows where they are. He does, however, explain the plan: The engineers of both ships will work together to fashion a drop tank for the Macavity and recover a sufficient number of emergency low berths to hold all survivors. These will then be frozen in small groups, and the low berths thoroughly disinfected and moved to the Macavity's hold. After that, the Macavity will make a multi-stage jump to Zuflucht, that being the closest system.

The Captain of the Deepnight Endeavour agrees to reinstate the Chief Engineer's command privileges for the purpose of refuelling their rescuers, and while she will still have to answer for mutiny, they are both pragmatic enough to defer that until they land somewhere civilised.

While Vila supervises the Endeavour's engineering crew in building a drop tank, Rex and Kharrash lead other engineers into the bowels of the ship to select and recover the most promising emergency low berths. This leads to a firefight with zombies during which they lose a couple of engineers and Kharrash suffers bumps and bruises.

While that's going on, Mazun notices a battered figure with a laser rifle setting up an ambush by the airlock bay the Macavity is docked to, which has a small circulation space and access to both personnel and cargo locks as well as a lift to the Endeavour's starboard PSM. They start talking using the airlock comms, and the figure explains that it's nothing personal, but given how dangerous the infection is, she simply cannot allow anyone to leave the wreck, for the survival of the species. Mazun patches the camera feed through to Doctor Matauranga, who deduces from a remote examination that the poor woman has gone psychotic under the stress of the situation. The Chief Engineer identifies her as the ship's Weapons Officer, who blew up the fuel cache - that action now makes sense, and Mazun and the Doctor hypothesise that in the early stages of infection, victims go insane in a way directed to make use of their skills; the astrogator caused a misjump, the weapons officer blew up the fuel cache, and this makes them deeply suspicious of what the Chief Mission Specialist might be up to in the science pod.

However, Mazun manages to keep the woman talking long enough for Vila to sneak up behind her, get The Drop, and zap her with his stun pistol. While she's processing that, Kharrash rappels down the lift shaft and zipties her, and before she can deal with that, Dr Matauranga places her under heavy sedation.

They now settle into a risky but straightforward execution of their plan. The drop tank is plumbed into the cargo bay and filled. The crew is called forward, twelve at a time, to be checked over by the good Doctor, frozen in low berths, the berths disinfected and loaded into the cargo bay. The science crew bring lots of data, records, and some samples of the alien life form. A few of the crew are infected, and these are diverted into separate and easily-identifiable low berths. The Chief Mission Specialist gives Mazun and Matauranga a bad feeling, so she gets her own low berth. Twice, groups of zombies try to join the party, but they have to come through a carefully-prepared kill zone in a single corridor, and any that get past Rex's dual-wielded laser SMGs are cut to pieces by Kharrash.

Mazun takes Vila and Kharrash aside; Vila he asks to make completely sure that nothing is getting out of those sample containers, and Kharrash he orders to move into the cargo bay for the duration of the trip, with permission to take lumps out of anyone - anyone - who tries to get at them.

As their final acts before abandoning ship, the Captain and Chief Engineer are persuaded to open the ship to space and shut down the power plant, to deny any possible comfort to the infection.

Jumping into deep space, the Macavity refuels from and then jettisons her drop tank, then jumps again, and staggers out of jumpspace at Zuflucht.

Zuflucht, 1108 Week 43

Dr Matauranga has spent the time in jump poring over the records from the Deepnight Endeavour, which may or may not come in handy later. The crew as a whole spent much of the time debating what to tell the authorities once they arrived; they settle on a cut-down version of the truth.

"We misjumped, and found ourselves near a wreck. We rescued the crew in low berths; some of them are infected, those are in separate marked low berths. Be very careful when you open them up."

If pressed, they decide they will reluctantly hand over the coordinates of the wreck, which Vila wants to sell to potential salvagers, and admit that there used to be a fuel cache there but it's gone now, in case the Navy jump there confident that they can refuel and become stranded themselves.

Zuflucht has an Imperial Navy "base" which is actually just a few offices with liaison and intelligence personnel; these explain that as per normal procedures, they would like to debrief the Macavity's crew in person aboard the orbital station.

The Macavity docks, and the crew disembark.

To be continued...

GM Notes

I did not see the PA call coming, but having established that the PA was still working and checked the motivations for each faction, it did in fact bypass a lot of the potential conflict in the scenario. Having established for other purposes earlier in the campaign that low berths can be transferred between ships without having to defrost the occupants, the players sacrificed their cargo to get everyone off the wreck; that wouldn't have worked otherwise.

The data dump to Dr Matauranga would've happened anyway in game, since he has Curious as a Major Hindrance; but it also allows me to establish the crew as experts on this infection, which gives me a lead-in to the larger campaign Deepnight Revelation later.

I'm not sure we want to do that; Deepnight Revelation is one of the few Kickstarters I regretted backing - if you can create stories of Man vs the wonders of the Universe, Star Trek style, week after week, then you don't need the campaign, and if (like me) you can't, it doesn't help you much.

However, Deepnight Endeavour is a nice little adventure, good for a session or two, with a good balance of combat, NPC interaction, and puzzle-solving; I commend it to the House. In hindsight, I should have made more use of the survival horror aspects, but the players seemed happy to avoid those and had solid plans for doing so. Likewise, I could have run more combat - that would have extended play time quite a bit - but the only combat-loving player couldn't make the relevant sessions, so such combat as there was we handled with Dangerous Quick Encounters.

Onwards to Great Rift Adventure 1: Islands in the Rift.

Fringe Space: Makavan 005 - Attempted Mugging

"Don't fight a battle if you don't gain anything by winning." - Erwin Rommel

New Hope, Early March '01: Robbery

Heading into the spaceport looking for his quarry, Makavan rounds a corner to find a pair of armed hishen. They turn to face him, and the leader clicks and chirps something which his translator renders as "Give us your money or else." They both brandish laser pistols to underscore this point.

Setup: Stand and deliver! Tokens and battlemat: Two Hour Wargames.

Makavan's aristocratic code of honour does not allow him to hand over all his valuables to some street thugs without at least a determined resistance, so ducking back to use the corner as cover, he snaps off a bolt at the leader, which misses. The second hishen fires back, making a small, white-hot crater in the wall near Makavan's head.

End of turn 1. As you see, I was playing in Roll20.

The lead enemy crosses the street to the best cover available, a narrow doorway niche in the building opposite, and shoots ineffectively at Makavan. Makavan sprays a fusillade of shots down the street, distracting the leader and by pure luck hitting his henchman and penetrating armour, inflicting a potentially lethal wound.

End of turn 2. Time to go.

Makavan considers his options for a split second; he can stay, and at best kill two hishen, which does him no real good. At worst, the remaining hishen could kill him, or enslave him - they're big on enslaving people. He decides his honour is satisfied by despatching one of the ruffians, and breaks contact before the leader dares stick his head out again.

Status at Mid-March '01

• IRD/DRD: +5 (Find Job), +1 (defeat opponent). Total +6.
• 5150 Stats: Rep: 5. Current IRD: 6. Lifetime IRD (calculated at month end): 11.
• SWADE Stats: Bennies: 3. Wounds: 0. Advances: None.

GM Notes

The involuntary encounter this month is another Robbery, this time by a pair of hishen gangers, a Rep 3 and a Rep 4, both with P-1s. Having established the scenario in 5150, I switched to SWADE for the actual combat.

• Turn 1: H1 (Ace of Hearts) tries to Intimidate Simon and rolls d8 = 8+2 = 10. As a PC, Simon (10 of Spades) is not having that, steps into partial cover, and fires; d8w = 2, miss. H2 (8 of Diamonds) fires; d6 = 5 - 4 for half cover (corner of building) = 1, miss.
• Turn 2: H1 (AD) makes a Spirit check to engage an armed foe and succeeds; he moves into cover (-2, door niche) and fires at Simon; d8 = 7-4 = 3, miss. Simon (KS) lays down Suppressive Fire on both enemies; careful placement of the template lets him hit both, d8w = 9 thanks to an Ace, and lasers ignore the Recoil penalty, so that's a Raise on H2 (a hit inflicting 19 damage thanks to Aces, beating his Toughness of 9 by enough to inflict two Wounds; he only has one, and I'm not spending my only GM Benny this early in the "session") and a Success on H1 (who is in partial cover), Distracting him. H2 (6H) is incapacitated by this point so declines to act. H1 and Simon both make Spirit checks to stay in the fight; H1 succeeds, but Simon does not, and slinks away around the corner, leaving the field to the enemy.

The idea of regular Spirit checks is adopted from 5150's Will To Fight tests at the end of each round of combat; in this case, H1 checks because his side has taken 50% casualties, but is still game (hishen will take all kinds of crazy risks to capture prisoners), but Simon has little to gain by fighting a couple of randos and could easily get badly hurt, so he's outta there. He's got a hishen to find, and it's not either of these.

Just as the paragraph is the emotional unit of writing, I think the encounter is the emotional unit of the solo campaign; so I'll leave it at that for tonight. One needs to pace oneself in these games, especially when using relatively complex rules, or one burns out and the campaign folds.

Aslan Route 34: Deepnight Endeavour, Part 1

Previously, on The Aslan Route… The Macavity has misjumped into deep space, with no star system nearby. However, a sensor scan reveals a large power plant ticking over nearby, and with no other options, the crew set course towards it...

This contains spoilers for Mongoose Traveller Great Rift Adventure 2: Deepnight Endeavour, but it was published in 2017, so I regret nothing.

Void 8 Subsector, 1108 Week 40

The Macavity quickly closes on the source of the neutrino emissions and discovers a starship, apparently of human manufacture, tumbling gently. She is broadcasting a low-powered transponder signal and has some energy emissions suggesting that at least some parts of her hull are still powered. However, all is clearly not well. The ship is heavily damaged and is at the centre of a slowly expanding debris cloud. She has no radar or other sensor emissions, and does not respond to communications. The slow tumble would make docking difficult, but not impossible.

Analysing the debris pattern reveals the debris was scattered from two points of origin, one the ship itself, centring on one of the ventral pods but with hits scored elsewhere on the hull. The second source was about 500 kilometres away, and appears to have suffered a catastrophic explosion scattering wreckage at much higher velocities.

The ship herself looks to be around 40,000 tons, prompting Vila to note that even if the fusion plant is running on fumes, fumes for a ship that size represent more fuel than the Macavity will need.

Mazun is easily able to reach, and fly around, the ship; the name Deepnight Endeavour is painted on the side in the usual places. Mazun admits that he did his national service in the Scouts, and heard of a corporation called Deepnight Exploration LIC which specialised in exploring rifts and other hard-to-reach places.

While the crew discuss what to do next, Dr Matauranga refines his location data and announces Macavity is three parsecs from Zuflucht in the Islands Clusters; the ship’s Library Data says there is an Imperial enclave there, with diplomatic, Navy and Scout representation, although neither of the latter can be called a ‘base’. This is an issue as even on full tanks the Macavity can only jump two parsecs, but they know it is possible to carry extra fuel, refill the tanks in deep space, and then jump again, so this makes things harder but not impossible.

The docking ports on the starboard Primary Structural Member are the obvious entry point, and with assistance from Vila, Mazun is able to dock the Macavity to one. Vila can see that it is intended as a docking cradle for fuel shuttles, but also quickly establishes that some inconsiderate soul has locked out the pumping station, so boarding is necessary. There are lights on and the power plant is operating on ‘hotel load’, i.e. just enough power to keep the ship habitable, suggesting there is someone aboard to ask for fuel, who would probably agree in exchange for passage out.

Leaving Mazun behind on watch, the rest – Rex, Kharrash, Dr Matauranga and Vila – don vacc suits, or in Rex’s case a pressurised infantry battle suit, and head up in the lift. Rex has two laser SMGs, Kharrash an automatic shotgun, Vila a stun pistol, and Dr Matauranga his sampling and medical kits. Once the lift stops and the doors open, Vila dismantles the panel and starts hacking the ship’s systems, muttering to himself “Any exploit is a total exploit”. He is unable to gain access, as the systems have been deliberately locked down and show evidence of cyberwarfare being waged inside the ship. There’s nothing for it but to emerge and look around.

After a short while, a shambling humanoid figure comes into view; it has the rough shape of a human being, but seems to be made of some combination of fungus, vegetation, and alien protoplasm. On detecting the boarders, it breaks into the closest thing to a run it can manage and charges. Vila’s stunner has no effect on it, so Rex cuts it into chunks with his lasers.

It seems to be alone, so Rex and Kharrash cover Dr Matauranga as he examines the body and takes samples. Under the outer fungal layer, the thing is wearing a jumpsuit with a nametag: STERLING. Mazun advises that the decontamination protocols he will enforce on return have just gone up a notch, and he orders everyone to stay in their suits.

The boarding party hears sounds from one of the nearby compartments and moves towards it. Kharrash opens the door and Rex lines up his lasers, ready to deal with whatever is inside; this proves to be a white-haired human male in a dirty lab coat who raises his hands and asks not to be shot. Rex decides he must be a scientist so calls Dr Matauranga forward, and the Doctor asks for information.

The survivor says he is Trennance Zedehlale, a research assistant, and explains what he knows or suspects happened; crewmembers investigated an alien ship, then fell ill, and soon afterwards, others did too. While heading for home, the Deepnight Endeavour misjumped - Trennance thinks that was deliberate - but the captain said he would get them home somehow and headed for a deep space fuel cache. By the time they arrived there were strange growths, a lot of sick crew, and zombies shambling around. The weapons officer blew up the fuel cache, and the surviving crew have split into factions and are competing for resources. Sooner or later the power plant fuel will run out or the zombies will get everyone.

In turn, Dr Matauranga explains to Trennance that Macavity has also misjumped, but if she can refuel she can make it to Zuflucht, and Trennance can go along in exchange for his help. He readily agrees, and suggests talking to the captain (who is in the command section somewhere) or the chief engineer (who is in engineering).

The Macavity's crew decide to begin with the engineering section, so leaving Trennance to shelter in place until the Away Team gets back, and under tactical direction from Mazun, they move through the starboard hull towards engineering. En route there is a minor firefight with several zombies; one of them makes it into melee range, at which point Kharrash’s casual lethality clears any remaining queries about why the Captain chose him as a bodyguard.

Not far into Engineering, they encounter an armed foraging party, and at first things are tense; but one of the engineers has the presence of mind to notice that the Away Team includes an aslan, and the Deepnight Endeavour’s crew does not. This buys enough time for Vila to explain that the Macavity has misjumped and needs fuel, and as a consequence there are a number of opportunities to Be His Friend and win an all-expenses paid trip Anywhere But Here. This is going out on a limb, as he has no idea how many engineers there are, but it sounds good to them, and they advise the Macavity's crew should meet the Chief Engineer.

Chief Engineer Dakh Moralder is a female vargr; pragmatic, if not as good at delegation as she might be, and focussed on saving what’s left of her engineering department – all 17 of them. She quickly agrees to the deal of helping Macavity refuel in exchange for a way off her own ship, and says the problems are that the relevant control circuits have been physically cut in the Operations Module, and her command authorisation has been revoked. This leads to a long discussion of how to overcome those problems, with Vila leaning towards either hacking the control systems on the pumps locally, or hacking the HR system and re-instating Dakh. The captain would notice either approach, but it’s not clear how he would respond.

Dakh says the suits aren't necessary, her section of the ship is free from infection. Dr Matauranga – never one to take anyone else’s word on medical matters – checks this personally, and agrees with her.

Mazun is reluctant to allow potentially infected people aboard the Macavity, but does want to save as many as he can, so proposes low berths as a solution which reduces risk and also increases the number of people who can be rescued. Dakh tells Vila that there are several dozen emergency low berths scattered around the ship – when you need one, you don’t want to travel far to get to it – and they can be demounted like ordinary low berths, making rescue easier and faster, and ensuring revival can be delayed until proper facilities are available.

So, it’s agreed that Dakh’s people, under Vila’s instructions, will fabricate some kind of fuel pod to carry extra fuel, allowing Macavity to reach Zuflucht. Once the ship is fuelled, people will be frozen by Dr Matauranga aboard the Deepnight Endeavour, and the berths then transferred to Macavity’s cargo hold.

Dakh doesn’t know how many people the bridge faction has; more than her, she thinks, but maybe not many more. Trennance said earlier he thought there were less than a hundred people left alive, and wondered why there weren’t more shamblers – there should be a couple of hundred. Nor is it clear how many people are left in the Mission faction.

The next step is to contact the Mission Specialists in the forward science pod. Dakh says that they are completely isolated in there, and she thinks their foraging parties get in and out using vacc suits to spacewalk to other pods.

Vila, Matauranga and Mazun compare notes on the art of the possible. They will need to fashion a 20-ton drop tank for extra fuel. If they abandon all the cargo that will leave enough space for forty emergency low berths, each of which can hold four people; that should be more than enough. The limiting factors will be how many berths and survivors they can recover.

Overall, they decide, it will be challenging, but doable.

To be continued...

GM Notes

Although I often berate myself for not having a better grasp of the detailed combat rules, after the initial battlemat fight with the zombie to show the players how they work, we shifted to a Dramatic Task for exploring the ship and a combination of discussion and basic Trait rolls for everything else, and you know what, that worked just fine and it didn't seem to be any less fun than any other approach. Maybe I should lighten up about this.

The next session should see some intra-party conflict. Mazun is Heroic, so will want to save everyone. Dr Matauranga has Curiousity as a Major Hindrance, so is itching to learn more about the fungal infection. Vila is Cautious, so won't want to run any risks.

The gun bunnies - Rex and Kharrash - have historically done whatever Mazun tells them, so my money is on him.