Avatar Alert! Mothership Month '25 Mini-Interviews, pt. 3
5MW AA, October 2025
Howdy again,
Today’s Avatar Alert is bringing you the final two mini-interviews for Pipesong by BoRyan, and stand/DELIVER by Ahmed Suffety. Enjoy!
Pipesong, BoRyan
Chris: Hello BoRyan! Glad to have you here, even if so briefly. Must admit, I’ve been into your work since your Vaults of Vaarn release, and was super stoked to see you take your craft to Mothership RPG. Can you give our readers who might not know Pipesong a run-down on your Mothership Month project?
BoRyan: Pipesong is a sandbox module set on a maintenance level deep in the belly of Prospero’s Dream, run by the Molvo crime family. The boss, Horse Molvo, is dead. The new boss, Chin Molvo, is hooked on ceo-brained slicksim influencers, and has a great new plan: what if we sold out to the corps? The family got the pipefitter’s union contract with bullets and blood, but if we sold it off to the company, we could replace all the labor with ox-debtors, and make a shitload of credits.
Following the model laid out in A Pound of Flesh, and mirroring systems implemented in much of my other work, Chin Molvo’s plan will unfold as a timeline of escalating events that change the material circumstances on 04 Deck. Players will see Pipesong transform from bustling little union hab, to security crackdown, to warzone.
No crime family is complete without a cast of criminals, and Molvo delivers. To stop Chin’s plan, players will have to take out or flip the Molvo lieutenants:
Slick (he/him), a suit-wearing drug-sniffing party-going EVA specialist
Bunko (she/they), a chromed out bodybuilding enthusiast and fight pit champion
Zakk (she/her), an educated professional and quickbooks whiz
Sally (he/him), gangster film enthusiast, owner of a real tommy gun
Rat (she/her), information dealer, with a small army of informants
Chris: Yo, that’s way more than you’ve mentioned on your BackerKit page! Gotta respect an intense core set of NPCs like that. What’s more, Pipesong hones in on a fundamental reality of a mega-station like The Dream: plumbing and thermodynamics. I am a sci-fi nut, and love to see folks bringing a hard reality to games in a fun way. Can you tell us more about the Tangle, and what inspired you and your partner to focus on the pipes?
BoRyan: You can learn a lot about a place by asking: “Where does the water come from, where does the sewage go?” On a space station like Prospero’s Dream, logistical problems draw inspiration. A big one in space, that’s often not addressed in sci-fi, is waste heat. That was our starting point you know, like “what would it be like in this little corner of the station, where you do critical work that is left off-screen in movies, and if you make a mistake, a million people might die?”
The Tangle is a hostile environment. In the book, it takes the form of a point-crawl, where players have to face hazards, pipe-cultists, and desperate ox-fugitives. There’s the Hives, a network of out-of-date class-0 docking bays used by smugglers and EVA freebooters. The Tangle is a briar patch, a space that locals are able to move around in with surprising speed and finesse, but will straight up kill you if you don’t know the way or aren’t wearing the right PPE. It will have opportunities to get involved in crime, bounties you can go after, and a place to hide if you draw too much heat.
Chris: I’m a sucker for site-dependent gear for area traversal (that’s the Metroidvania sicko in me, I guess). Like I mentioned, I’m already a fan but you’ve hyped me up even more. Happy to see Pipesong has funded, and I hope to see more of those stretch goals unlock! Thanks for chatting, BoRyan!
stand/DELIVER, Ahmed Suffety
Chris: Hi Ahmed! You’re a new Mothership writer and new to crowdfunding, but are still a seasoned ttrpg creator, having come in from 5e, Forged in the Dark, and MÖRK BORG. Can you tell our readers what compels you about Mothership RPG, and introduce folks to your MM25 project, stand/DELIVER?
Ahmed: While my start in writing and design was proof of concept for 5e, I’ve always been drawn to other games in the industry, from Forged in the Dark and MÖRK BORG, to designing my own systems, available on sufftety.com. Mothership RPG pulled me in with its lethality, horror, and most of all, pacing.
stand\DELIVER is a dueling factions toolkit for The Dek, an entertainment district on Prospero’s Dream. Players take on the mantle of space pirates vying for approval from the fraternity of pirates (mentioned in Wages of Sin) by delivering a shipment of goods. Or as station security operations (SecOps), hunting down these drugs before things get out of hand. The imminent lockdown puts players in tense encounters as the drugs in the district begin spreading and mutating users.
stand\DELIVER adds class breakdowns and loadouts for both Pirates and SecOps, along with equipment like new Drones and fresh Cyberware. New features, Worth and Debt, drive roleplay, giving players ulterior motives, and provide encounter hooks for the Warden to introduce as complications. A new resource mechanic is introduced for both classes as well. Pirates gain contacts, a way to reach the particularly seedy denizens of the stations, for favors or the purchase of contraband. SecOps gains requisition script, a method for acquiring specialized, powerful gear available only to high-ranking station enforcement. All these new mechanics are modular to fit into any Mothership game, regardless of setting.
Chris: Never such a thing as too much cyberware, that’s for sure! One of the aspects of your module that I admire, and that I think Wardens need more of for running The Dream, is that you’ve built up a new district: The Dek. What can you tell us about this district, your inspirations, and what new mischief it brings to the Dream?
Ahmed: The district is a neon spectacle, littered with advertisements, tourists, and dark corners. Expanding on The Dream’s vibe and setting, The Dek has over 10 locations and at least one NPC per location. Each of these interests is tied to Phase Alterations, which can be inserted into any story arc or campaign and run alongside the greater threat of civilians mutating.
The Dek is an amalgamation of multiple inspirations. Some that stick out are bars and social scenes from Blade Runner, The Expanse, Altered Carbon, and Minority Report. I wanted to capture some of the “cyber-grunge” feel of those worlds while maintaining the Mothership vibe. It isn’t meant to be a cyberpunk supplement, but rather a dirty patchwork stepping stone for the uncertain future of The Rim.
As for mischief, The Dek is wrought with it. Lowly sanitation officers crafting monstrosities from the would-be recycled dead. Sleeve storage facilities provide vulnerable hosts for the mutating drug, creating soulless husks hunting for sentience among the innocent. Multiple phases from The Dek’s Locations and NPCs align with the blood thirsty horrors unleashed upon the station.
Chris: That sounds great. My favorite part of this year’s Mothership Month is seeing all these coherent, zoomed-in settings and the stories they hide. Creates such a colorful smorgasbord for Prospero’s Dream, or any cyberpunk city setting. Thanks for coming on, Ahmed, and congrats on funding stand/DELIVER , :)
Signing off,
Chris Airiau