Adventure Report Mini: Orphans

Date played: 17/11/2025
System: Mothership
Adventure: Orphans
Players: Major Diz Astor (Jonathan), Flash Frieze (Michael) and Mark (Matthew)
GM: Me
Runtime: 2.5hrs-ish

So Easy

I shared the link to the Mothership Companion App with them in the discord and players all rolled up characters a day or so before the game. Rules, I explain over roughly 20 minutes while I eat a chicken fajita. I don’t get into the nitty gritty details, just tell them the basics.

Thorough Prepping

I was glad to have pre-read the module front to back the night before, as it allowed me to internalise some details and describe the setup without even opening the pamphlet.

I introduce an NPC from Christian Kessler’s Survivors of the Core Wars NPC deck (with illustrations by Bosun Au) an android named SigNull. This guy is the liaison between the shadowy corporation and the players.

They ask SigNull for equipment and the android, Mark, asks for some skill training. SigNull is pleased at the party’s thoroughness, providing them with shotguns, paracords, and a floppy disk containing the First Aid skill.

Beautiful Vistas

I always enjoy visualising and describing the sci-fi vistas on display in Mothership games. When I wrote 95 Million Lightyears to the End of the Universe, a lot of the original ideas were just things I thought looked really cool – Enceladus with its cryovolcanic geysers, the hexagon at the south pole of Saturn, etc.

I start with a description of the sight they got coming in close to Imuen Station, within which Orphans takes place – A huge, swirling red giant looming as they come into its orbit and the ring-structured space station of Imuen silhouetted against it.

No Signal

Players note that all comms signals are being jammed by an unknown source, and the station is running on emergency power, with low lighting and no signs of docked ships or activity.

Flash Frieze is familiar with this station, commenting that it’s usually busier. They do a sweep of the station and find concerning evidence of military tech; a breaching device.

One of the players almost tried to triangulate the jamming signal, and I would have allowed them to find the Vampire Squid mercenary ship if they did, but the idea got swept away in the flow of conversation and they never found it.

Entering the Ship

After a quick scan for traps, the crew enter through the umbilical to the lobby. Stagnant water and dirt on the floors are an immediate cause for concern.

They head to reception, where they encounter their first corpse! Mark uses his First Aid skill to determine they were shot point blank, execution style. The party download a map from the computers and then split up to search the mall and the residential area.

 


I like the advice in the module footer that tells you to just hand the full map to the party if they can find a way to get access to it. Those little warden notes are great for showing how the writers conceive of running the adventure, and while I am happy to go against that intent, I appreciate the insight, nonetheless.

Resident Evil

The residential area brings a great moment of tension. Two voices call out for “help, help!” among a sprawling maze of habitation dorms. A strange, cold mist rolls down along the walls and settles over the floor, while vines and roots protrude from cracks, giving the whole place a very unsettling vibe.

Major Diz explains to Mark that they should not go in without knowing for sure that any active threat has been identified and neutralised. They hold their ground.

This was a smart decision. The two calling for help were “figments” of Auntie. Auntie is an interdimensional horror of pain and trauma, and it can generate simulacra of humans called figments. It uses these to lure victims in before devouring them.

Mall Rat

While the marine and the android suss out the residential area, Flash searches the mall along with his scientist friend Mr. NPC (I can’t remember their name). They discover 17 staff, executed or shot while fleeing. Horrible.

Flash finds a hidden box with a little audio recorder stuffed inside a toy rat and listens to it. He hears nothing interesting until the last 2 hours, where the sound of alarms and mercenary jackboots can be heard over screaming and gunshots. Then, some time later, an inhuman grunting and screeching, followed by awful stomping, followed by more screaming and squishy gore noises.

Reading the module text, I didn’t initially understand what this whole rat recorder thing was or why it was even included. When I played, I realised it was an opportunity to freak the shit out of the players with some foreshadowing of Auntie. Good.

They find the corpse of Tina Slobadan, covered in mud and bark and leaves, torn in half. They decide to leave.

Anger Management

The party reunite and make their way to management, where they meet Steve. Steve is hiding inside a bin, gibbering to himself. He is convinced this whole thing is a hallucination. Then he gets very angry and says it’s all the fault of the two little orphan kids. He thinks they snuck down to the maintenance area, to the fuel tanks.

Session time was running up to 2hrs at this point, and I only had 45 minutes to wrap everything up. So I had this NPC deliver a very strong hint.

Steve climbs back in the bin after the party calm him down a bit, and then they proceed towards maintenance. They encounter Tina Slobadan in the Lobby. This strikes Flash Frieze as strange, since wasn’t she torn in half, covered in soil and shit, in the previous room?

Flash wastes no time and tears her apart with his vibechete. She dissolves into mud and a pillar of black smoke begins to rise in the centre of the room as Auntie has finally lost patience with this party and attempts to materialise.

I like that they were able to determine Tina was a figment by piecing together context clues from the module.

The party put up a valiant fight for a round or two, but it becomes clear that Auntie, an 8’ tall demon of amalgamated animal parts, tree life and rock, is not to be trifled with. They flee down towards the fuel tanks as fast as they can. Major Diz Astor loses a limb in the process.

The Orphans

They finally reach the empty fuel tank where the two orphans are hiding. After a brief, panicked dialogue, the party convince them to escape the station. Auntie materialises once again in a last-ditch effort to cause some damage, but the party flee with the orphans intact.

Unfortunately, Mr. NPC is turned into a fine red mist during this interaction. Rest in peace.

I only had 15 minutes left to wrap things up, so I skipped a room or two in the lower half of the station. This meant we missed the pile of mercenary corpses, leaving their fate a mystery.

Thought

I really enjoyed this module, it’s tight and well written, and contains a lot of room for freeform exploration and problem solving. Auntie is a very spooky horror, and the mounting manifestation table for her on the back of the pamphlet is very atmospheric. The advice to not describe her all at once but focus on individual aspects and highlight their unique awfulness, is perfect.

 

Play more games!

Harry

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