Alien RPG: Dark as Day and Cold as Ice (Sandbox Colony Setting)
An ocean world beyond the Outer Rim. A seafloor farming colony around hydrothermal vents, deep beneath the ice. Under pressure. Nothing will go wrong.
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LANGUAGE
EXPERIENCE
AGE
$20.00
/ Session
Details
Weekly / Saturday - 6:00 PM UTC
Session Duration / 4 hours
1 / 5 Seats Filled
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Meet your party members
1/5
About the adventure
A new life awaits you in the Off-world colonies! A chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure! "Dark as Day and Cold as Ice" is a wholly original setting for a Free League's "Alien - The Roleplaying System" Colonists Campaign. At the heart of the Cyclades Cluster, in the distant reaches of the American Arm, far beyond the Outer Rim, sits Chartier’s Star. In orbit a single ancient Gas Giant with a single roughly earth-sized moon: Karn's World is a radiation-soaked icy ocean world with surface temperatures that never rise above -70° C [c. -100F], and home to about 500 colonists: Hard-working, good, decent men, women and children. Families. Engineers. Farmers. Service workers. Most live in Karn City, a modular habitat hanging beneath half a kilometer [c. 1600 feer] of ice, over a vast lightless ocean, connected to Triton Comms Station at the surface, and the only space port, via elevator. But the ride may take some time: Karn City has to be kept at 50 atmospheres of pressure with a special heliox air mix, and even with Proteus Industries' proprietary anti-bends medicine pressurization requires a couple of hours. The work: Farming bioengineered shrimp, mussels and tube worms around mineral rich volcanic hydrothermal vents to provide the necessary protein for much of the Cyclades Cluster, at a depth of almost 2000 meters [c. 6500 feet] and a pressure of 200 atmospheres. Corporate calls the farm Doris Station but most colonists call it the Deep Down. What you cannot do via ROVs, you have to do in heavy duty power armour diving suits. Space suits are nothing compared to this. One crack and you implode faster than the blink of an eye. There are two other installations on Karn's World - the Charybdis Penal Mining Station, where the Outer Rim's worst of the worst dig for lithium, beryllium and niobium pegmatites. Recently Shaft Ereshkigal, one of the four major mine shafts, flooded and about a hundred prisoners were crushed in an instant. Corporate was not happy about the dip in productivity. The other is Madoc Station, a small, remote research station, developing the bioengineered sub-nautical farm life for the colony. The c. 30 scientists and administrators there rarely visit Karn City, though the guards and staff from the Penal Mine get regular leave and bring welcome additional cash into the colony's struggling economy - sufficient to keep a few bars and a casino operational. Things are going fine. Work is hard, and the isolation can put a lot of, well, pressure on people. There are rare cases of helium-induced HPNS psychosis, but the signs are usually spotted in time. There are the usual spooky rumours - things living in the ocean, people seen in dark corridors where nobody should be, etc. People got to tell stories, but really everything is going well. The only life in those oceans is what the colonists brought with them. The population is small and all accounted for. Everything is fine. Everything. Is. Fine.
Game style
Sandbox / Open World
Puzzle / Mystery Focused
Roleplay Heavy
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
5.0
(11)
2 years on StartPlaying
304 games hosted
Highly rated for: Creativity, World Builder, Storytelling
About me
When I was 11 years old, I discovered a red box in my local bookstore with what I thought at the time was the coolest image I had ever seen - a Conan-like muscle-bound, sword-wielding hero facing down a huge red-scaled dragon defending a vast treasure of gold. The mysterious words on that box read "Dungeons & Dragons - Basic Rules Set". I knew that there was something magical about that box the moment I laid eyes on it, but I did not know how much it would change my life. That was in the spring of 1984. In 1989 I also discovered Call of Cthulhu, in 1991 - after I had just read William Gibson's "Neuromancer" - Shadowrun. Soon Cyberpunk 2020 followed, then Paranoia, Vampire - The Masquerade, Werewolf - The Apocalypse, GURPS, Conspiracy X, In Nomine and, well... there has never been a time in my life since I took home that original red box and showed it to my best friend that I haven't played some form of roleplaying game. I also went to college, moved to Berlin, got married, wrote screenplays for German TV, worked as a translator for novels and film, wrote novels myself, had children who themselves grew up to become gamers, and through all of this the simple act of sitting down around a table with people and together *living* a story - often epic stories, sometimes silly stories, scary stories, even personal stories - never lost its original magic. And now the magic of the internet allows us to do this together, no matter where we are in the world. Maybe you have heard of D'n'D but have never played and don't know anyone to play with but want to give it a try. Maybe you moved or your old group broke up because you all left college. Maybe you just want to try a new game with an experienced game master. Whatever your reason, let me take you on a journey into that magic.
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
We create characters together during a (free) Session Zero. We'll be using Free League's "Alien RPG - Evolved Edition" rules, incl. those from the "Building Better Worlds" Colonists supplement, and perhaps the "Colonial Marines Operations Manual". Starting available careers will be Colonial Marshal (only 1), Kid, Medic, Officer, Roughneck, Scientist (from the Core Rules) and Entertainer (from "Building Better Worlds"). All careers have access to the additional Colonists career talents. Starting characters cannot be androids. (Depending on character turnover, later characters may include other careers and androids.) If you do not have access to the rules or are new to the game, don't worry, I will walk you through character creation and the rules.
What to expect
Preparing for the session
We will be using Roll20 for character sheets, dice rolls, maps, handouts, etc., and Discord for the voice chat. You will need a (free) account on Roll20, and a (free) account on Discord. I will send you the necessary invites to the game and the server when you join the campaign.
What Martin brings to the table
We will be using a mix of tactical battle maps and Theatre of the Mind, with station, submarine, sea floor, mine and planetary surface maps, NPC portraits, location sketches, handouts, etc. to create the right images and mood. If all players enjoy it, I will be using ambient music, though I have found that some players prefer to play without as it can make online communication harder. Expect a gritty, realistic, mostly by-the-(campaign-play)-rules game, though on occasion narrative needs may override the hard "rules as written". This will be a survival horror game, and while less deadly in campaign mode compared too the cinematic mode, character death is definitely a real danger. When that happens, you will create a new character from the types of colonists, researchers, guards or other personnel that might at that time join the party.
Equipment needed to play
Internet
Computer
Microphone
Platforms used
Safety
How Martin creates a safe table
Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence. This is a scifi survival horror game, set on a remote alien world mostly hundreds of meters below the frozen surface of a planet-spanning ocean, in a dystopian hyper-capitalist corpocracy. There might also be hostile non-human entities, though even if, it remains to be seen who is worse. You don't see them fucking each other over for a goddamn percentage. But that does not give anyone (including me) carte blanche to act abusively weather out of or in character. This game is LGBTQ and BIPOC friendly and no form of sexism, racism or bigotry will be tolerated. I do not use a Lines and Veils document or a formal X Card, however I do take player safety seriously. I have learned that most formal safety tools can depending on the player be as restrictive as they are helpful and for each player who feels empowered by one tool there is one who feels constrained and muted by the same. Instead I go over general safety behaviour in Session Zero and encourage players to signal any discomfort with me, the game or other players anytime either openly in the chat, in private messages to me during the session, or anytime between sessions, however suits them best, and I will do my best to create a safe and welcoming atmosphere for everyone. (And yes, anyone can change their mind anytime about what might be crossing a line or be triggering, you can step away or we can pause the game for a recalibration anytime. This is a game and we're all here to have fun.)
Content warnings
Safety tools used