Avatar Alert! Mothership Month Mini-Interviews, pt. 3
Ben King's Knowledge Asymmetry and Adrian Hunt's 90 Seconds to Midnight
Hello interstellar dreamers,
Chris here, back with Part 3 of the Mothership Month Mini-Interviews. If you missed them before, you can find Part 1 here, and Part 2 here. Also, the mildly late (sorry, all my fault) free Mothership Month adventure Raider Bounty of Gilgamesh-VII can be found after the interviews.
Today, I have Ben King and Adrian Hunt on the newsletter, fellow writers from the Devil’s Due space pirate book who, like myself, also have their own solo Mothership Month projects under way.
Knowledge Asymmetry, Ben King
Chris: Ben, first, let me thank you for hosting so many blog interviews with the creators from Devil’s Due. Your questions are so precise and have spawned wonderful mini-conversations, fantastic work.
You’re one of five members from the Devil’s Due team who is also crowdfunding a solo project. For those who might not know, what’s exciting about your module Knowledge Asymmetry?
Ben: Wardens can use Knowledge Asymmetry to throw their crew into high stakes conflicts between one of four unique space faring villains. The corporate fixer is a great way to draw players into lucrative jobs with the criminal underworld. Use the bounty system from Wages of Sin to take on any of the villains in their ship lair.
Chris: Ha, just so. Right, I admit this is a totally selfish question, but I am enamored by the Scarlet Croswell heist team. Can you tell us what they’re all about, and how players and Wardens can expect to engage with them at their table?
Ben: Scarlet Croswell run a legitimate transport company by day, shipping asteroid mining resupply. By night, they use those same cargo transfer skills they’ve honed swapping mining crews and ore to loot cargo from Company vessels just as they warp out of jumpspace. They slip in and out before cargo ship crew can be roused from hypersleep. They’ve got a lot of respect for other folks just trying to get by out in the deep black, and specialize in less-lethal tactics. They’re doubtlessly more civil employers than the Company but will fight viciously if they’re backed into a corner.
Chris: Honorable thieves! Obviously, I have nothing but adoration for lovable scoundrels. I can already see how these NPCs could operate a maneuver against the PCs’ ship, or how they might join the Scarlet Croswell for a heist themselves. Fun stuff, there, thanks for indulging me Ben!
90 Seconds to Midnight, Adrian Hunt
Chris: Yo Adrian (a.k.a. RANNE), how are ya? Exciting to see you show out for Mothership Month! For folks who might not know, you’ve been a regular on the Mothership Discord for as far back as I can remember, and it’s been a blast being on the Devil’s Due project with you. I’m equally pumped to see what Shore Leave shenanigans you have in store for 90 Seconds to Midnight. What can ya tell us about your first solo Mothership module?
Adrian: I’m well, thanks! Yeah - I feel like I’ve been “around” for a bit but nothing has felt like this last month or so. I’m pretty amped, too. Barely able to focus on anything other than all this Mothership Month business. Speaking of… yeah! 90 Seconds to Midnight… giant casino resort where a Crew can run wild with options to basically play The Hangover, Ocean’s 11, Twister (in space and with meteorites instead of tornadoes), or a combination of all the above and thensome. And of course working on Devil’s Due was icing on the cake and being allowed on deck (pun intended) to contribute was quite simply an honor.
Chris: Devil’s Due has been a fun project to see grow over the months, and it’s pretty cool to have this one as a surprise! So the Midnight colony resort is FREAKING HUGE, sporting a population of 20k. Is this a space station, a moon colony, what more can you tell us about this setting and how it came to be?
Adrian: Midnight is a resort colony situated on a moon. It’s like Vegas meets Disney World meets Hong Kong, etc etc… I wanted it to feel big/dense! The module itself is an evolution of a tri-fold I was working on over a year ago (at 12 pages now, going on 16). I wanted to get into the 3PP scene and a tri-fold seemed like the answer for obvious reasons. My aim specifically was to avoid traditional horror tropes since there are so many already (not a bad thing, just wanted to do something different out the gate).
I kicked it into high gear when Mothership Month was announced. I thought this opened the door to my idea since the theme was around crime specifically, which isn’t what the layman might think of when they consider sci-fi horror. Some elements in it are still “horror,” but my main hope is for Wardens to find this an interesting and flashy sandbox to wedge in between their table’s adventures… then pull the horror levers once players fall in love with the place and its characters. Other than that, I got a super team of contributors to help me take it to the next level of what it can be. I am really really proud and excited for this to be my first official project ever!
Chris: This definitely sounds like the sort of hub station that folks are going to be looking for to supplement their Mothership campaigns. I know I’m always trying to keep places like this on the radar. And of course, who wouldn’t love some role-playing gambling, haha. Thanks Adrian!
Rebel Bounty of Gilgamesh-VII
Ok, here it is, the monthly 5MW Press freebie, and not even a week late, ha. Dive through the Undercity of Gilgamesh-VII, featuring character art by Perplexing Ruins, ship art by Carly A-F, system maps by Robotic Topologist, and written by eight Mothership Month creators:
Chris Airiau
R.A. Creedon, Straight Arrows
Adrian Hunt, 90 Seconds to Midnight
Julius Karajos, Operation Golden Cut
Ben King, Knowledge Asymmetry
Andrew C. Manson, The Dose Makes the Poison
Abrah Nassif, The Iron Hive
Elliot Norwood, Death Pays All Debts
The bifold adventure is free on itch.io as a submission to the Mothership Month Game Jam on itch.io! We hope you enjoy it!
Signing off,
Chris Airiau