Jazz Fawk (Order #41945607)
Derelict Generator by Karl Scheer is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution Share-alike 4.0 International License
Special thanks to my editing, cat-crazy wife Kate and my font guy Cecil Howe, who tells
me when I pick bad fonts.
Jazz Fawk (Order #41945607)
A Few Assumptions About the Galaxy
While designed to be system agnostic, these rules strongly imply
a theme for the sessions in which it is used, as follows:
The galaxy is harsh.
Its people scramble to find even one valuable piece of old tech,
from debris indicative that whoever sent out these ships in the
first place didn’t have their crew’s best interest in mind.
Derelicts are massive.
Even the smallest ships housed hundreds of thousands of people.
Some ships were the transportation for entire colonies or
corporations.
Someone survived.
The derelict’s fate still hangs in the balance. Dramatic
differences in travel time in space could mean that this derelict
could have come from any time in the past. Maybe the ship failed
yesterday. Maybe a meager few crewmen scrape by on the supplies
originally designated for a few thousand.
Jazz Fawk (Order #41945607)
What to Roll
If you’re just starting or you don’t have a preference on ship
type or theme, you can easily create a generic colony ship by
rolling a standard set of RPG dice, as follows:1d4, 4d6, 1d8,
2d10, 1d12, 1d20. If you have something else in mind, refer to
the ‘Node Type Table’ below and make adjustments to your
preference. A War Hulk might have more d8s and fewer d6s, for
example, because a War Hulk has a lot of weaponry and defense,
but not a lot of common modules. Perhaps a high-tech ship would
have two reactors or redundant commander centers.
How to Roll
Positioning
Where you roll is just as important as how you roll. Make your
rolls atop a standard sheet of 8½”x11” paper (printer paper) and
notate where each die falls in pencil to keep track.
Nodes
A node is created at the point where any single die lands on the
page. Nodes denote places of significance aboard the ship, places
where the bulk of the narrative is most likely to occur, but the
ship is not made exclusively of these locations.
Connections
When you draw a line between two nodes, you are creating a
primary travel path between those two locations. These routes
could be anything (tramways, roads, walkways, elevators, etc) but
they are not the only route between nodes. Expect to reveal
alternate routes during gameplay that are less convenient. It’s
not important to mark any of these down on your map until it
becomes relevant to the game.
Jazz Fawk (Order #41945607)
The Process
1. Take all the dice that you plan to use to figure out your
derelict (as determined by the ‘ Node Type Table’ table)
2. Roll them over a sheet of 8.5”x11” paper.
3. Reroll any dice that rolled off the sheet.
4. Now that you have rolled, convert all the dice placement
points into nodes by removing each die from the page and
writing its size and result in a circle where it landed. For
example, mark a D6 that rolled a 3 as ‘D6-3’.
5. Starting at a node of your choice, draw a connection between
it and one of its neighbors. Do this for all nodes while
keeping the following in mind:
a. Each node must be connected to at least one other
node. Most should have at least two ways in and out,
but feel free to add more to match your vision for the
ship
b. Consider all the nodes when planning your connections
and watch for implied architecture. Your node
placement may end up implying a long corridor or a
centralized area; add more connections to nodes like
this to reinforce a ship structure.
6. Now that you have the outline of your ship, use the node
designations (D6-3) on the tables below to figure out what
is in the ship
7. According to the fiction established in your mind, break or
add new node connections and write notes about what’s going
on in the ship.
8. Begin the scene where your players approach the derelict
Dice Tables
Each node has a type (the number of sides its die has) and a
value (the number that is face up). Consult the ‘ Node Type Table’
below for the room’s general purpose and the ‘ Node Value Table’
to better understand the details of the node or the events
happening there.
These tables paint broad strokes and so aren’t meant to be set in
stone; details are at the GM’s discretion. If you have a
particular theme in mind or get some ideas from reading the
tables, then by all means, make changes.
Jazz Fawk (Order #41945607)
Node Type Table
The type of die dictates that node’s purpose or place on the
ship.
Dice Type Summary Details
d4 Reactor All ships have a reactor, but it could be
in any condition.
d6 Common Rooms which are common in most ships for
Modules general utility.
d8 Weaponry and Few ship will navigate the vastness of
Defense space without something to protect itself.
d10 Unique Places Every ship bears some unique signature of
its maker or specializations for its
particular mission.
d12 Command Area This reflects both the physical location of
the bridge and the personality of the
ship’s captain.
d20 Plot Twists There’s a reason why you’re here.
Node Value Tables
The value of the die suggests either an event or a more precise
purpose for the node.
D4 Table - Reactor
Players may be able to control which rooms are operational or
supported from here.
Result Title Details
1 Imminent Nearby nodes are at risk of being destroyed
Meltdown unless the situation changes, fast.
2 Powered Off The ship is relegated to emergency power.
3 Intermittent Crucial systems could cut out at any time.
Power
4 Full Power Most-everything is fully operational.
Jazz Fawk (Order #41945607)
D6 Table - Common Modules
Result Title Details
1 Habitation Shopping centers, cafeterias, and living
quarters
2 Entertainment Virtual reality, stadiums, arenas, exercise
facilities
3 Cargo Bays Trading goods, food stores, minerals, ice
4 Commercial Manufactories, scientific labs, docking bays
5 Scientific Geographic/terraforming, biological - flora,
biological - fauna, supercomputing
6 Contraband Slaves, drugs, weapons
D8 Table - Weaponry and Defense
Result Title Details
1 Basic Defensive Anti-small craft flak cannons, small-bore
Weaponry lasers
2 Advanced Ship to Anti-ship cannons, artillery, missiles
Ship Weaponry
3 Autonomous Small to human-sized anti-personnel drones,
Drones nanobots, space-capable hovering drones
4 Marine Barracks Small to medium arms, light to heavy armor,
powered armor, small vehicles
5 Militia Quarters Rows of small arms, light armor bunk beds
and lockers
6 Automated Computer bays managing turrets, laser
Defense Center traps, advanced blast doors, shifting
corridors
7 Small Craft Bay Fighters, bombers, scouts, boarding pods
8 Weapons Lab Chemical weapons, bio weapons, weapons of
mass destruction
Jazz Fawk (Order #41945607)
D10 Table - Unique Places
Result Title Details
1 Rupture Structural damage to the derelict has left parts
of it without oxygen, artificial gravity or
containment.
2 Cryochamber For significant portions of this ship’s flight
time, most of the population was in suspended
animation. Smaller shifts of the crew are
typically awake to maintain the vessel.
3 Simulation- Incredibly advanced virtual reality chambers;
level VR may even be able to emulate touch.
4-5 Illegal Lab An unlicensed lab working on scurrilous
experiments.
6-7 Surveillance This room contains access to a surprising number
Center of functioning internal sensors … sensors which
may not have been used with the best intentions.
8 Full-Biome This ship has large swaths dedicated to
Terrarium recreating an entire biome such as a swamp, a
mountain range or plains. This might be from
Earth or another world. It is teeming with
native plants and animals.
9 Cloning Bay Whether the cloning bay is currently functioning
or not, many members of the crew are copies.
10 Autonomous A significant subsection of the ship can break
Subsection off and fly on its own. It’s likely to have a
lot of redundant systems to the main ship or a
specialized purpose.
Jazz Fawk (Order #41945607)
D12 Table - Command Area
Result Title Details
1 Rebel This ship, or a sizeable portion of its
population, has broken free of corporate control.
2 Engineer The ship, not the crew, is the Engineer’s primary
focus.. Who knows what personnel problems were
left to atrophy?
3-4 Headless Recent events have left the whole chain of command
dead, leaving the ship adrift and scrambling for
order.
5-6 Corporate Shareholder value is the name of the game.
Interest
7-8 Scientist Information and progress are the primary goals of
the Scientist captain, nevermind the risks.
9-10 AI The ship is run by a highly advanced computerized
entity. It’s unlikely that it has always kept the
emotions or well being of its passengers in mind.
11 Nepotism The commanding officer has been given their post
not from merit but through someone they are
related to. It shows.
12 Militant Regardless of the ship’s intended purpose, the
chain of command reflects aggressive, military
intent.
Jazz Fawk (Order #41945607)
D20 Table - Plot Twists
Result Title Details
1 Occult Chamber A strange new religion has risen up to
make the ship theirs. This is their ritual
chamber.
2 Chambers Crammed Slavers have come aboard to take the
with Captured original population into forced labor.
Crew
3 Room Crammed Some something crucial (food,
with Desperate entertainment, liberty) recently slipped
Souls from the grasp of the populace and things
got ugly.
4 Unknown Incomprehensible sentient aliens are
Structure Buried onboard. Who knows what these creatures
in the Hull want or what they are here to do.
5-6 Hangar with a Corporate reclamation crews have been sent
Guarded Advanced in to take the derelict back; it will be
Salvage Ship broken down for anything of value in the
most pragmatic way.
7-8 Valuable Data The databanks in this chamber are set to
Bank, Set to wipe, every minute counts to get this
Erase valuable and grim secret.
9-10 Rooms or Hull The first evidence of a strange
Coated in an animal-like alien infestation.
Alien Residue
11-12 Malfunctioning A serious hardware malfunction endangers
Blast Doors the entire ship. This could be an illegal
Leading to an chemical lab sapping critical power,
Industrial radiation leaking into the life support,
Chamber etc.
13-14 Scrappers A crew of corporately unaligned experts
(probably a lot like you) have come aboard
to turn the derelict into profit.
Jazz Fawk (Order #41945607)
15 Chamber upon This subsection of the ship is flooded.
Chamber Full of Navigation to the treasure within is
Water possible but risky.
16 A Collision with In just a few days, or perhaps mere hours,
a Ship or Astral the ship will collide and render its
Body is Imminent treasures worthless.
17 The Derelict is Perhaps scavengers decided that it was
Someone’s New easier to stay than to sell the parts, or
Home maybe rebels are using this as a forward
base.
18 A Hidden Chamber The ship is fleeing its original
Sealed Off from destination and the reason for its flight
the Rest of the is still onboard and hidden in this room.
Ship
19 The Ship is Shifting bulkheads and grinding stone
embedded in a guard the tunnels into the asteroid. The
Giant Asteroid passageways surely contain caches of rare
and untapped metals.
20 Incomprehensible This finding is changing the ship in weird
Archaeology or a and unfathomable ways; something has gone
Similar Find has horribly wrong.
Been Brought on
Board.
Jazz Fawk (Order #41945607)
