Going to use this blog as an archive for all my notes and fanart of my Mothership campaign that I'm a part of. :) We play every other Friday, so you can probably expect updates around that time.
Asks are Open, and I won't mind responding to questions in character, but I will not be using this blog to interact or respond to attempts to roleplay.
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⚠️ Content Warnings ⚠️
Mothership is a Sci-Fi Horror TTRPG and as such, it contains a lot of upsetting content and topics. Posts will likely not be trigger tagged on this blog, and instead will receive content warning tags only if reblogged to my main.
Be aware of the following content, which is subject to future additions; injury, blood, guns, gore, character death, dismemberment, body horror, harm to children, loss of autonomy, corporate pressure, space horror, biological horror, ecological horror, and more.
If you find any of this upsetting, I encourage you to keep yourself safe, and to not follow. :)
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👾 Current PC's Reference - [Cypher Sparks (Scientist)] 👾
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Will add additional information as I might need it :)
Caleb takes Adolfo’s body down to the lab to do a proper autopsy.
They talk through the autopsy, recording it. Every so often, Caleb dissociates, and briefly thinks. They could bring him back. They could raise the dead. But Caleb never entertains the thought.
“From the looks of it, he went down fighting.”
Caleb treats Adolfo’s chest wounds, dresses Adolfo in his nice clothes, and holds him, sobbing, telling him that they will meet them again, wherever he ends up, and that they loved him very much.
They have a bonfire burial, with the intent to cremate Adolfo’s body. Caleb carries his body to the pyre, and they all say their goodbyes one last time. Caleb wishes him luck, and says that he’ll have to wait a long time until they see each other again. Percival tells him that he would have loved to spend more time together, that they were so much more alike than they knew, and Percival salutes him. Sparks fixes his hair, tells him that he was a bigger help than he ever knew, and that she always saw him as family, and then she kisses his forehead. Evander sets Adolfo ablaze with his own flamethrower, in the cargobay of the Lethe (to contain the smoke).
Caleb tells Evander that whenever Adolfo talked about him, all he could say was how proud he was of him.
Long story short, Adolfo died so Percival and Bob would be able to continue forward to save Jonesy. Adolfo gave himself up and completely lost his mind (and body) to a force outside of our control.
Short story long, however...
Jonesy Babbitt (Subject 04, "The Dreamer" from the Tannhauser project, Sparks's chosen younger brother) began working at a virtual reality net-den on station called Avalon.
It was fantasy-based, like an MMO. People could connect and escape into a beautiful world that they'd never be able to experience otherwise. Avalon was likely the only time most people living on Ortega would ever see a blue sky. Less than 1% of people ever travel through space, after all. People are born on the station and die on the station. Jonesy was Avalon's artist, he was in charge of modeling different environments and such. In reality, Jonesy was using the psychic abilities he got after undergoing dissociative warp tests, and projecting illusions to help complete the world. If he (or others) could imagine it, he could project it. He was helping others experience things they never would have been able to before. He started a group, the Black Toga Guild. He made friends. They knew him as King Babbitt.
While working on Avalon, Jonesy noticed glitches. There was a remote player (someone who was not coming into the net-den but playing from somewhere else), who was experiencing bad spawn locations, and their model would not render properly. Just a low-poly, translucent pink of what could be a person. Jonesy got to know the player. She went by Anzu. Spoke with her, laughed with her, developed a relationship with her. Soon, other people in Jonesy's guild (people who also interacted with Anzu), went missing, trying to find Anzu.
Eventually, Jonesy went too, arriving in a slickdev office somewhere in the Wattcolmbe Apartments district.
Enkidu Cybernetics (a prosthetics and technology company completely separate from Magatsu-Ward) had sent Adolfo there a few years ago, with the intent to find and retrieve stolen property, and "take care of" a certain former employee.
Sparks, Percival, and Bob went to check it out first; along with an Android provided by Enkidu, as Adolfo was somewhere else trying to settle a debt we had with Enkidu (another long story to touch on).
Bob got stuck within a "demo" simulation, forgetting her past life. She often saw flashes of a young, gaunt man with sunken features and messy hair in reflections, flashing across screens, or appearing in projections. Bob knew this to be Jonesy, but the persona she took on within the demo couldn't recognize him.
Sparks was also attacked by the Augmented Man within the building (who was, if I had to guess, returning to Wattcolmbe under Anzu's influence, unable to fight back her influence much longer). Sparks had her head smashed in, skull fractured. Percival escaped with Sparks, leaving Bob behind and making sure Sparks got immediate medical attention. But in doing so, Percival had to come clean about his employment working under Magatsu-Ward.
Percival has been reporting back to the company with information and updates on our whereabouts and with information about the test subjects ever since we've met him. He was keeping tabs on us under the promise to eventually return the subjects back to the company. He regrets his decisions, and wants to make it right. Sparks made him promise to go back and save her brother.
An extraction team provided by Enkidu (which consisted of Percival, Adolfo, and two of Enkidu's marines) returned to the slickdev office with the intent to retrieve Anzu, and rescue the 5 people stuck within the demo simulation; three missing players from Avalon, Bob, and Jonesy. Bob was released, and one of the Avalon players, Anchal, made it out. The other two missing Avalon players (named Zepp and O'Hara) died within their slickbeds, unable to be saved. The two marines provided by Enkidu were also killed in the gunfight.
Finally making it into the AI-Core room, Adolfo, Percival, Bob, and Anchal finally got a good look at Anzu. She was an amalgamation of every person that helped create her. All 24 developers were within the core room, their corpses strung up by wires and tubes like a gruesome chandelier or branches on a ginormous tree, all connected to the AI.
Around the crew, the room changed.
It turned into a huge stone tower with a spiral staircase that traveled up. Beneath us, a glass floor, reflecting the AI Core as it once was. And forming within, a roiling black storm with red lightning striking.
As the four of us climb the tower, the storm followed steadily, moving without resistance, just out of reach.
We all experienced memories, memories that brought us here.
Bob remembered the mistakes she made when she was younger that led to the death of her wife. Anchal remembered interacting with Anzu and promising to come visit (it's what friends do, after all). Adolfo remembered his first deployment on Hecate, and how he killed the man who tortured him throughout his training. And Percival remembered the hit he took out on an Android on Jovos, an Android that looked suspiciously like his deceased sister.
Each time we woke from our memories (our bodies climbed the stairwell, but our minds took us elsewhere), the storm licked at our ankles and our sanity deteriorated along with it.
Adolfo took it the worst. He was barely holding on to his humanity.
When we finally made it to the top, the "king's burial chambers", where Jonesy was, in a slickbed carved from marble...
Adolfo stayed back. He didn't run. He faced the storm, with his flamethrower.
It was like witnessing the birth of a star.
The storm took him, and there was flame, gas, and lightning. A searing inferno that Adolfo once was.
He bought Percival, Bob, and Anchal more time to reach Jonesy.
Jonesy knew Anzu wasn't a person. Anzu didn't dream. He knew she wanted to manipulate and use him and his abilities to consume and replace as much of the station as she could.
But, Jonesy thought he could use Anzu too. Jonesy wanted Anzu's reach to put out a better world. He thought that if he could just get rid of the nightmares they lived in, everything would be better. Jonesy was prepared to kill himself for the people he loved and cared about. They didn't deserve to live in such hardships any more, and he thought he could fix it himself by making a different reality for them to live in.
Eventually, Jonesy gave in, and we got him out.
Percival and Bob are returning to the Lethe, with Jonesy in tow, but without Adolfo.
He sacrificed himself to make sure Jonesy could get out.
these men cannot be left alone. adolfo nearly set percival ablaze and cooked him to death for quite literally no reason (a measly 10 points of damage that would not have broken the armor of the enemy in exchange for percivals two entire wounds)
she has yet to successfully shoot any bullets at any living person, within the 30 sessions i've played her. does this make her strong or weak? the jury is still out on the matter.
She met him at a bar, and he tried to sell her drugs <:) She humored him, they had a good time, and they've gotten pretty close in the background. Good friends! They're comfortable together. But no official labels.
When he isn't working in the mines, he's the guitarist in an anarcho-punk band called BombSquad that plays live on Ortega near where her mechanic shop is located. They seem to be a frequent target of some brutality from the station security. BombSquad is also, coincidentally, one of Miriam's favorite bands to listen to on Ortega.
With the way things are going, we're likely going to have to flee Ortega and leave our whole lives behind if we want to keep any semblance of freedom. And whether they're official or not, that would include Sparks leaving Razer. And having the loudest most disruptive riot somewhere on the other side of the station would really help cover their tracks and let them get away in the chaos.
That is, if he doesn't want to romantically and dramatically run away with her instead. <:)
so uh, did you finish the finale? :) how's everyone doing?
no actually, we spent most of last session making a plan for exactly what we need to do <:)
Quick Rundown;
Percival has admitted to being an Agent, working directly for Megatsu-Ward and handing off information he's collected about us back to the company, with the plan to eventually get the five Test Subjects from the Fidanza back into company hands. He regrets his decisions and has decided that we are ultimately worth dying for, and has chosen to oppose the company and help us flee.
Megatsu-Ward is going to close in on the Wattcolmbe Slickdev Office for the express purpose of gathering Jonesy (Subject 04) to reacquire him, and then possibly the others. Enkidu Cybernetics is ALSO closing in on Wattcolmbe to gather up AI technology that was stolen from them. And we've been given offers from both companies to go in and assist in either side.
We would all rather die than agree to giving the Test Subjects back to MW and Tannhauser, so whatever we do there, it will be our last few hours on Ortega station (our home, which is ultimately owned by Megatsu-Ward). We're scrambling to gather whatever we can of our previous lives and are planning on never coming back.
Here is my current noteboard: I will add text transcript below the readmore because its quite a bit.
We will likely be enacting most of this cobbled-together plan next week. Feel free to ask about anything specific! and. Wish us luck. <:)
"Augmented Man"
Third party involved in the "war on Wattcolmbe"?
Perhaps hired to test the prototype slicksuit stolen from Enkidu
Possible MW influence? Reciting ads for MW products
-> Went back to Wattcolmbe to mindlessly smash shit?? Was he looking for something or someone?
Razer
Possible distraction? Does he even care if he won't start a riot for you
-> I'd like to take him with us tho :(
Sonia + The Lethe
Needs Warp Core (1mcr)
More Fuel from Bob's Ship (Crawfish)
-> Take piece of Crawfish for sentiment? <:)
Max crew capacity is 16
Where do we even go?
-> Best option is Siesta-3, we have friends and work there, away from MW.
Sparks
Collect the crew and do housekeeping
Leave Sparkplugs behind…
-> Take sentimental items + important documents
Percival + Adolfo
Return to Wattcolmbe on Enkidu's Side
Get that thing from Rox god dammit
Oppose MW.
Enkidu Cybernetics
Wants Anzu, not Jonesy. (will not help in saving him but will offer other basic aid?)
-> Didn't Percival already collect the haptic feedback tech and hand it over to MW?
-> Rox has the equipment meant to release players from Ninutra's Flight.
Evander (do not separate from Miriam)
Gonna be pissed at Percy when he finds out :(
Good people do bad things when cornered. Don't forget; you pulled a gun on us, too.
Miriam (do not separate from Evander)
Likely will not leave without Caleb.
Caleb
In a long term coma being housed in a MW owned hospital
Easy to get in, impossible to get out (???)
If we can get them out, put immediately into cryo
Yu
Likely will have to endure warp jump again
Will she be okay?
Bob
Still in Ninurta's Flight??
Save her too :(
Anchal, O'Hara + Zepp
Three missing AVALON players
Save for Jonesy's sake?
Jonesy
Stuck in the Wattcolmbe Slickdev Office. Stuck in the simulated reality, starving to death, running himself ragged
MW going to Wattcolmbe specifically to grab him
End the Season how we started: Find and Save Jonesy Babbitt (!!!)
Nonzero chance that additional "Test Subjects" will be at Wattcolmbe
when the narrative has become cyclical and you find yourself prepping to do the exact same thing you did years ago that put you on this path to begin with;
