Starter Adversaries

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This chapter contains the stat blocks for every named adversary, NPC combatant, and ship antagonist in Dead Drop at Harrowspan. Organize your reference at the table however works for you: some GMs print and fold, some keep a tablet open to this page.

Adversary Tiers

Exodus NDS divides non-player adversaries into three tiers. Each tier reflects narrative significance and mechanical complexity.

Minions are low-significance adversaries who operate in groups. A Minion group shares a single pool of Wounds calculated as one Minion's Wounds multiplied by the group size. Each time the group suffers Wounds equal to one Minion's individual Wounds, one Minion is eliminated. Minions do not have Strain; Strain effects cause Wounds instead at a 1-for-1 rate. Minions act together on a single initiative slot, make one check per round as a group, cannot spend Story Points, and are simply removed when their Wounds are exhausted.

Elites are individual adversaries with their own Wound tracks but no Strain. They can suffer Critical Injuries. They cannot spend Story Points. Elites are the primary individual threats the crew will face on Harrowspan; they have motivations, tactics, and the capacity to make the crew's lives difficult without being the kind of climactic threat that ends campaigns.

Nemeses are full antagonists with both Wounds and Strain, the ability to spend Peril Points, and the mechanical weight to serve as adventure-defining threats. No NPC in this adventure operates at full Nemesis tier. If Sev becomes a recurring antagonist in your campaign, you may wish to promote him to Nemesis when the crew encounters him again.

Elites

Inspector Tarek Oll

Tarek Oll is a mid-career Irnan Directorate border and customs inspector assigned to the Harrowspan transit lane. He is not a villain. He is not a corrupt official. He is a professional who takes his job seriously, understands that the Meridian Verge operates on negotiation as much as regulation, and is genuinely more interested in compliant transit than in arresting anyone.

The crew is most likely to encounter Oll as a social challenge: he has questions about the Ember Drift's manifest, the sealed container's registration, or the crew's documentation. His goal is a clear record, not a confrontation. He will escalate to formal search if he believes he has cause, and he will call for security backup if the crew makes this feel like an altercation.

Only use his combat stats if the crew initiates violence against an Irnan official, which carries significant faction consequences beyond this adventure.

Resistance: 3 | Melee Defense: 0 | Ranged Defense: 1

Inspector Tarek Oll — Elite

Irnan Directorate, Border Inspector

Skills: Perception 2, Lore 2, Negotiation 2, Intimidation 1, Ranged 1, Athletics 1

Talents:

• Procedure Memory: Oll adds 1 Boon Die when recalling or applying specific Irnan customs regulation, transit law, or institutional procedure. He knows the rulebook and he knows when someone is working around it.
• By the Book: Once per scene, when Oll formally invokes his legal authority, he may add 1 Boon Die to a Negotiation or Intimidation check.

Equipment: Directorate standard sidearm (Damage 6, Ranged, Short/Medium range), Directorate dress uniform with light integrated protection (Armor +1, Ranged Defense 1), official scanning tablet and documentation kit, encrypted Directorate comm link.

Tactics: Oll does not want to fight. If the crew begins a conversation and passes one social check, he will complete the inspection and move on. If they fail a social check but stay civil, he escalates to formal documentation request. If they threaten or attack him, he draws his weapon, calls for Harrowspan Security on his comm link, and fights defensively while backing toward cover. He is not trained for close-quarters ambushes; his Ranged Defense of 1 reflects his standard-issue protective underlayer, not active evasion.

GM Note: Oll is primarily a social encounter. If the crew gives him a clean manifest and does not behave suspiciously, he will wave them through without a roll. The interesting version of this scene is when the crew has to give him a partially convincing story about a container that he has reason to flag, or when Sev's presence on the station has already prompted a secondary inspection notice.

Sev

Sev is a Human Pale Table operative of significant experience. He presents as a competent professional in civilian clothes that suggest neither wealth nor poverty: the kind of person who is easy to look past in a crowd and difficult to look past in a room. He is the primary antagonist of the adventure's second half, but he is not a soldier. He wants the container. He would strongly prefer to acquire it without a fight.

Sev arrived at Harrowspan ahead of the crew, has established a position of quiet information advantage, and is currently running at least one secondary operation involving Rinn and the unnamed Pale Table operative. He is charming when he wants to be, direct when that serves him, and entirely willing to escalate if the crew makes cooperation impossible.

If combat begins, Sev's priority is escape, not victory.

Resistance: 3 (includes light concealed armor) | Melee Defense: 1 | Ranged Defense: 2

Sev — Elite

The Pale Table, Acquisition Operative

Skills: Deception 3, Negotiation 3, Subterfuge 3, Charm 2, Streetwise 3, Ranged 2, Stealth 2, Perception 2

Talents:

• The Easier Path: Once per scene, when Sev opens a negotiation from a position of information advantage (knowing something the other party does not), he may add 1 Boon Die to the first social check.
• Exit Protocols: When Sev is in a scene where an obvious exit exists (a door, a corridor, a docking bay), he adds 1 Boon Die to any Stealth or Athletics check made specifically to disengage and leave. He has rehearsed leaving.
• Compact Fire: At Short range with his submachine gun, Sev adds 1 Boon Die to Ranged attacks. This represents training in close-range controlled bursts rather than accuracy at distance.

Equipment: Compact submachine gun (Damage 6, Ranged, Short/Medium range, Qualities: Auto-fire, Concealable 1 when disassembled), concealed light armor (Armor +1, Ranged Defense 2, not visible under normal clothing), two encrypted comm devices on different frequencies, a data chip with partial navigation survey data (the real content of the container, or a copy of it), 3,000 credits in untraceable transfer codes.

Tactics: Sev's preferred sequence is: establish contact, present the offer (3,000 credits, no questions, give us the container), give the crew time to decide, and complete the transaction quietly. He has no interest in killing the crew; dead crew create records. If the crew refuses and the situation deteriorates, Sev calls for Rinn and the unnamed operative, uses his position in the station geometry to force the crew to commit first, and fights only to create the few seconds needed to get to the docking bay and Sev's salvage skiff. He will not pursue the crew into the Ember Drift. The container is valuable; it is not worth dying over.

GM Note: Sev works best as a recurring figure if this becomes a campaign. His motivations here are professional rather than personal; he bears the crew no particular ill will. If the crew takes the container to Saint Orra's Rest and Sev escapes, the next time they meet should feel different.

Minions

Pale Table Operatives

Sev brought two operatives to Harrowspan: a woman named Rinn and a man who has not offered a name. They are professionals of modest capability: experienced enough not to panic, disciplined enough not to freelance, not experienced enough to make independent tactical decisions when Sev is not directing them.

Rinn is the more capable of the two. If the crew defeats the unnamed operative but not Rinn, Rinn retreats to Sev for new instructions rather than pressing an engagement.

Individual Minion Wounds: 8

Group Total (2 operatives): 16

Resistance: 2 | Melee Defense: 0 | Ranged Defense: 1

Pale Table Operatives — Minion Group

The Pale Table, Contract Security

Group Size: 2 (Rinn + unnamed operative)

Skills: Ranged 1, Athletics 1, Stealth 1

Equipment: Light sidearms (Damage 5, Ranged, Short/Medium range), concealed light armor (Armor +1, Ranged Defense 1), encrypted comm devices.

Tactics: Pale Table operatives follow Sev's direction. Without direct orders, they control access and maintain position: one covers the docking bay corridor, one monitors the crew's location. They do not initiate combat without Sev's signal. If fired upon without a clear line to Sev, they take cover and return fire while trying to raise Sev on comm. They are professional enough to know when they are outgunned and will disengage if the crew demonstrates superior force and they have a viable escape route.

Harrowspan Security

Harrowspan Station is administered by the Funtari Cooperative, and its security detail reflects Cooperative values: working-class professionalism, preference for de-escalation, and no appetite for collateral damage in a station they actually live on. These are not mercenaries and they are not soldiers. They are port workers with authority and the legal tools to enforce it.

Security responds if the crew causes enough trouble to trigger a Cooperative alert: a firefight in a public corridor, forced entry into restricted areas, or assault on an official. Their first action is always to demand compliance. Their second is to cordon. Only their third is to engage with force.

Individual Minion Wounds: 7

Group Total (4 on response call): 28

Resistance: 2 | Melee Defense: 0 | Ranged Defense: 1

Harrowspan Security — Minion Group

Funtari Cooperative Station Security

Group Size: 4 (typical response team)

Skills: Athletics 1, Ranged 1, Intimidation 1

Equipment: Shock batons, non-lethal (Damage 6, Crit 5, Engaged, Disruption; Stun Damage: all damage is suffered as Strain instead of Wounds; Disorient 3: on 2 Boons the target is Disoriented for 3 rounds, adding 1 Bane Die to all checks), Directorate-surplus sidearms with a stun setting (Damage 4, Ranged, Short/Medium range, Qualities: Stun Setting: switching is free once per turn; on stun the sidearm deals Stun Damage, its range is Short, and it cannot inflict a Critical Injury), light station security vest (Armor +1, Ranged Defense 1), station comm on security channel.

Tactics: Harrowspan Security wants the station intact and the incident resolved. They announce themselves before engaging, order all parties to drop weapons and lie down, and will accept a peaceful resolution at almost any point. If the crew cooperates, security detains everyone and sorts out jurisdiction and blame later, which creates its own complications but avoids a firefight. If the crew fights security, the station locks down access to the docking ring, which prevents anyone from leaving. The security team is not trying to win; they are trying to contain.

GM Note: Triggering a station lockdown is a significant complication. The IRNS Sentinel's crew will notice and begin their own inquiry. Sev will accelerate his timeline. The Ember Drift will be impounded pending the investigation. Use security as a pressure multiplier rather than a combat encounter.

Ship Adversaries

The two ships the crew may encounter in Dead Drop at Harrowspan use the Void Drifters ship stat block; the Ember Drift's block and a note on reading one are in Chapter Three, and every cell is explained in the Vehicles Manual, Chapter Sixteen, Reading an Entry. Chapter Nine runs the encounter. In short: ships have Hull Points and System Points instead of Wound and Strain tracks, and damage counts up toward them. Armor reduces each hit. Deflection adds Bane Dice to attacks against the ship. A ship is destroyed when its Hull Damage reaches its Hull Points and out of control when its System Damage reaches its System Points.

Both ships are stock Vehicles Manual hulls: every statistic is the catalog entry's. What differs is the name, the directive packages, the modules in the open slots, and the weapons.

IRNS Sentinel

The IRNS Sentinel is an Irnan Directorate patrol ship: a Crown Meridian CM-440 armored cutter in Directorate customs service. It arrived at Harrowspan on routine rotation three days before the adventure begins and is docked at Bay 7. Its crew is professional, its captain is competent, and its standing orders do not include attacking a licensed commercial vessel without cause.

The Sentinel becomes active in the adventure if the crew's behavior triggers an official inquiry, if Inspector Oll reports an irregularity that warrants investigation, or if the crew attempts to leave Harrowspan before an inspection is complete. Even then, its first action is a comm challenge and a demand to heave to, not a weapons lock.

Customs fit. The Sentinel is a catalog CM-440 with its one open Module Slot filled by a Customs Inspection Module, and its mounts carry disabling weapons instead of the typical loadout: an Ion Pulse Emitter in the Standard mount and two Ion Blasters and a point-defense laser in the Light mounts. Its Professional Directive AI runs four packages on two Active Channels; in a fight the channels usually go to Fire Control and Sensors.

Key Crew:

• Captain Nara Vel (Human, Elite-tier if combat occurs): A career Directorate officer in her late thirties who runs a tight ship and a clean record. She follows procedure, interprets it reasonably, and is not interested in paperwork that results from preventable incidents. If the Ember Drift heaves to and cooperates, Vel will conduct the inspection professionally and let the crew go if nothing flagrant is found. In a ship fight she acts as captain and gives Direct Focus.
• Pilot: Agility 3, Pilot 2 (2 Mastery, 1 Ability Die).
• Sensor Operator: Intellect 3, Electronics 2 (2 Mastery, 1 Ability Die). Competent at the job; notices if the Ember Drift is running with an unusual heat signature or a mismatched transponder.
• Gunners and engineer: Agility 3, Gunnery 2 for the two gunners; Intellect 3, Craft 2 for the engineer.

Tactics: The Sentinel comms the Ember Drift and orders it to heave to before any weapon is fired. If the Ember Drift complies, Vel sends a boarding party (three crew, inspection equipment) and conducts a standard search. If the Ember Drift flees, the Sentinel pursues and fires its ion weapons to stack System Damage and put the freighter out of control, demanding compliance all the while. The ion weapons deal almost no Hull Damage. The Sentinel will not destroy the Ember Drift: a destroyed ship generates more paperwork and Directorate scrutiny than a detained one. When the Sentinel has suffered 10 or more Hull Damage, Vel calls a halt and Oll offers terms (Chapter Nine).

The Sentinel is faster than the Ember Drift (Speed 4 to 3) and far more durable (Armor 3 and 22 Hull Points, against Armor 1 and 18). The crew's best options are buying time, maneuvering through the wreckfield, or talking their way into an inspection they can survive rather than a fight they cannot win.

Pale Table Courier

The Pale Table courier is a Safa S3 pursuit craft refitted for covert work, its transponder running a commercial cover identity. It is berthed at Bay 9 as a salvage skiff under a false registration ("Kerath Salvage, Independent"). If Sev and his operatives need to leave Harrowspan quickly, this is their exit.

The courier becomes a ship adversary in two scenarios: if the crew intercepts Sev at the docking ring before escape, or if the crew pursues the courier after Sev escapes and the chase leads into open space near Harrowspan.

Pale Table refit. The hull is a catalog Safa S3: every statistic is unchanged. The Pale Table replaced the Internal Security Suite with a Transponder Spoofing Suite, which holds its false registry profiles, and filled the open slot with a Signal Scrambler. A Combat Thruster Overburn kit is fitted to its maneuvering thrusters. Its mounts carry a Tractor Beam, to hold a ship for boarding, and two fixed autocannons. Its Professional Directive AI runs Flight Operations, Fire Control, Electronic Warfare, and Navigation. A Safa S3 sells for 349,000 credits new; the refit's price is not on any market.

Crew:

• Pilot (Pale Table contractor): Agility 3, Pilot 2 (2 Mastery, 1 Ability Die). The Pursuit Frame trait adds a Boon Die to Pilot checks to close distance or hold a pursuit.
• Gunner: Agility 3, Gunnery 1 (1 Mastery, 2 Ability Dice).
• Sev (if aboard): Sev is not a pilot. He acts as captain (Direct Focus), or takes a gunner's seat for the autocannon battery at 3 Ability Dice.

Tactics: The courier runs. It does not want a fight with the Ember Drift; Sev considers the container a professional setback, not a personal vendetta. If the crew pursues, the courier uses its Speed advantage to open distance (Speed 5 moves two range bands with each Advance or Break, against the Ember Drift's one) and makes for a Slipstream seam. It fires only if forced to close range or if the Ember Drift gets ahead of it. When the courier is the pursuer (Chapter Nine), it closes, fires the Tractor Beam, and tries to collar the held ship for a boarding.

The crew's best tactical option is getting ahead of the courier, not chasing it: the Ember Drift cannot overtake a Speed 5 ship in a straight chase. If Senna plots an intercept course rather than a pursuit course, the courier's Speed advantage becomes less decisive. Its Combat Thruster Overburn puts a Bane Die on every attack against it while it Overburns.

If the Ember Drift does catch the courier, its Armor 2 and 14 Hull Points mean it will not survive a sustained exchange. It breaks off when it has suffered 9 or more Hull Damage. Sev knows this, which is why he will negotiate rather than fight if the crew corners him.

Ship Combat Summary

The Sentinel outguns and outlasts the Ember Drift in a direct engagement. The courier outpaces the Ember Drift but cannot take damage. The crew's job is to make choices that avoid letting either confrontation become a straight fight.