Asteroids23

I am experimenting with sub-locations. This one could be placed in any habitat where commerce is going on, for example in the  Ancient City . Rounding a corner, you emerge on a busy, narrow street. The ceiling is suddenly so distant it might as well be the open night sky. Shaded, ancient arcades line the thoroughfare which is dimly, unevenly, lit by neon, string lights, strobes and fire in equal measure. Steam from some malfunctioning vent wrap the stalls in misty strands, mingling with sweet incense smoke and other, odder vapours. Your nostrils are assaulted by a hundred smells you recognise and twice as many you don’t. Many of the things on sale are unfamiliar, yet there seems to be buyers for it all, as strange as the merchants themselves. Type:  Area Function:  Market  Power source:  As habitat Gravity:  As habitat Size:  Narrow lane  Affiliation:  None Population:  A dozen vendors, many visitors Sells:  See entries  Buys:...

While I don't want to design a specific rules system for Asteroids23 (yet...) I feel it might benefit from some guidelines on how to handle space travel and navigation in the implied Belt setting. These rules are supposed to be as minimal as possible while covering those things that I feel are interesting to model in a game with this focus. Handling ship damage, navigation and fuel economy should create tension and interesting scenarios! Ships Most vessels that the PCs will have access to are either corvettes or frigates; ranging from 50 m to 100 m in lenght. They are frequently powered by fusion reactors, situated at the base of the ship. Most fusion reactors are toroid-shaped tokamaks, and therefore the reactor module looks bulky, often spherical, from the outside. The reactors power the ship systems and accelerate a stream of purplish, superheated plasma through nozzles under the reactor module.  In addition to the reactor, large fuel containers filled with frozen hydrogen (50% ...

Maybe you've heard rumours, or maybe you were pulled slightly off-course by a heavy but invisible celestial object. Now that you're here, there's nothing to see... until the stars suddenly shift in a small patch of sky before your eyes. There is a disk-shaped hole in the sky and beyond it, some other place, very far away.  Type:  Anomaly Function:  Unkown  Power source:  Void  Gravity:  Exerts the equivalent of a dense asteroid, disturbs the trajectories of nerby objects Size: About a hundred meters across   Affiliation:  None Population:  None Sells:  Nothing  Buys:  None There is a worm-hole like anomaly here, yet undiscovered by corporations and states. It leads to a point in space millions of light-years away. This point is not even situated in a galaxy, but in the mind-boggling void between them. The few "stars" that are dimly visible are in fact distant galaxies. There seems to be absolutely nothing in that place on ...

This nickel-rich asteroid is a typical mine; claimed by a small company and rapidly being gutted by swarms of machines and workers. Relative remoteness puts the operation at risk, raiders and pirates are a constant threat. Type:  Mine Function:  Mine  Power source:  Various  Gravity:  None Size:  2 km  Affiliation:  Corporate Population:  Thousands of miners Sells:  Nothing  Buys:  Protection  As many other exploited asteroids, this one is perforated with tunnels, the interior fully exposed to vacuum. Machinery for smelting and refinement covers a large amount of the surface and the tunnels are buzzing with robots, miners in heavy-duty suits, huge drill rigs and transport drones carrying containers of raw ore to the outside. The  foreman  wishes to cut costs by ending the contract with an expensive protection firm, instead hiring private actors such as the PCs for patrolling and escort of the ore freighters ...

The small fleet has been crawling through the void for months, undefended and low on resources. Rumours precede it; a caravan of a almost a hundred pilgrims in half a dozen ramshackle vessels. They say they were twice a many in the beginning, but malfunctions and pirate raids have taken their toll. Will you aid them or are they prey to you? Type: Fleet Function: Pilgrimage Power source: Various Gravity: Various Size: 6 vessel, mostly frigate-sized Affiliation: Religious Population: 83 Sells: Nothing Buys: Water, food, fuel, medicine These pilgrims are heading to [a holy site to be created later]. They are mostly poor folk, who have purchased the vessels at great personal cost. Most of them are nearly starving, and few of the ships provide tolerable living conditions. Fuel reserves are minimal and they maintain a low cruising speed in order to be able to afford the de-acceleration burn. It is unlikely that any but a few will make it unless aid is provided. If a ship can be captur...