Starter Adversaries

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.

Rivals are individual adversaries with their own Wound tracks but no Strain. They can suffer Critical Injuries. They cannot spend Story Points. Rivals 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 them to Nemesis when the crew encounters them again.

Rivals

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 — Rival

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 Pale Table operative of significant experience and uncertain species background. They present 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. They are the primary antagonist of the adventure's second half, but they are not a soldier. They want the container. They 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. They are charming when they want to be, direct when that serves them, 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 — Rival

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), they 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), they add 1 Boon Die to any Stealth or Athletics check made specifically to disengage and leave. They have rehearsed leaving.
• Compact Fire: At Short range with their 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: Burst, Concealable 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. They have 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 their 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. They 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. Their motivations here are professional rather than personal; they bear 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: one named Rinn and one 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: Non-lethal stun batons (Damage 4, Melee, Qualities: Stun — on 2 Boons, target suffers 1 Strain instead of 1 Wound from this attack), Directorate-surplus sidearms loaded with stun rounds (Damage 4, Ranged, Qualities: Stun), 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 their 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 follow the ship stat block format from the Void Drifters Vehicles Manual. Reference the ship combat framework in Chapter Nine for full rules. The short version: ships have Hull Points and System Points rather than Wound and Strain tracks. Armor reduces incoming damage. Defense adds Bane Dice to attacks against the ship. System Damage degrades specific systems.

IRNS Sentinel

The IRNS Sentinel is an Irnan Directorate patrol cutter, CM-440, customs enforcement variant. 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, the Sentinel's first action is a comm challenge and a demand to heave-to, not a weapons lock.

The Sentinel's weapons are configured with disruption-optimized munitions rather than standard kinetic loads. Its goal is to disable the Ember Drift for boarding, not destroy it.

IRNS Sentinel — Patrol Cutter, CM-440 (Customs Variant)

Irnan Directorate, Border Enforcement

Weapon Systems:

• Forward Disruption Battery (Fixed Forward, Medium range): Ionized kinetic rounds optimized for system disruption rather than hull damage. Damage 5, Qualities: System Strike (on 2 Boons, deal 1 System Damage in addition to any Hull damage).
• Port/Starboard Stun Lances (Short range): Electromagnetic lances used for disabling drives and weapons systems at close range. Damage 3, Qualities: System Strike (on 1 Boon, deal 1 System Damage instead of Hull damage — choose when spending the Boon).
• Point Defense Network (Omnidirectional): Standard CM-440 point defense against missiles and boarding pods.

Installed Modules: Internal Security Suite, Armory, Barracks Module, Customs Scan Array (adds 1 Boon Die to sensor checks against vessels attempting to mask cargo or spoof transponders).

Model Trait — Reinforced Compartments: Once per encounter, when the Sentinel would suffer System Damage from a Critical Hit, collision, or cascade failure, reduce that System Damage by 1.

Key Crew:

• Captain Nara Vel (Human, Rival-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 them go if nothing flagrant is found.
• Sensor Operator (Minion-tier, handles detection checks): Competent at their job; will notice if the Ember Drift is running with an unusual heat signature or a mismatched transponder.

Tactics: The Sentinel will comm the Ember Drift and order 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, fires the stun lances to reduce Speed and cause System Damage, and continues to demand compliance rather than firing for hull damage. The Sentinel will not destroy the Ember Drift: a destroyed ship generates more paperwork and Directorate scrutiny than a detained one.

The Sentinel is faster than the Ember Drift (Speed 4 to the Drift's Speed 3 on a standard Model 20 hull) and significantly more durable (Hull Points 22, Armor 3). The crew's best options are buying time, maneuvering through terrain, 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 an unmarked fast courier in the Scale 3 range, likely a modified Safa S3 with its transponder running a commercial cover identity. It is berthed at Bay 9 as a salvage skiff under a false registration. If Sev and their 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.

The Pale Table Courier is faster than the Ember Drift and more maneuverable, but it is lightly armored and carries minimal weapons: it was built to run, not to fight.

Pale Table Courier — Fast Courier, Safa S3 (Modified)

The Pale Table (Cover Registration: "Kerath Salvage, Independent")

Weapon Systems:

• Forward Compact Railgun (Fixed Forward, Short/Medium range): A light fixed kinetic weapon adequate for deterrence. Damage 5, Qualities: Reliable.
• Aft Point Defense (Rear Arc, Short range): Light point defense and deterrence system. Damage 3.

Installed Modules: Extended Navigation Suite, Counter-Surveillance Suite (adds 1 Boon Die to checks to mask the ship's transponder or reduce its sensor signature), Emergency Burn Capacitor (once per encounter, the courier may push its Speed to 6 for one round; at the end of that round it adds 2 Heat).

Model Trait — Pursuit Frame: Add 1 Boon Die to Pilot Trials made to close distance, prevent an enemy from opening distance, or maintain pursuit through hazardous terrain.

Key Crew:

• Sev (if aboard): Sev is not a pilot. The courier's directive AI handles navigation under Sev's direction.
• Directive Navigation AI: Handles routine piloting; uses INT 3 for Pilot checks, no Pilot skill. Effective for transit and routine maneuver, limited in creative tactical situations.

Tactics: The Pale Table 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, attempts to reach a Slipstream seam before the Ember Drift can intercept, and fires its forward railgun only if forced to close range or if the Ember Drift manages to get ahead of it.

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. The courier's Emergency Burn Capacitor gives it one burst of Speed 6 per encounter; account for this in the final stretch of any chase.

If the Ember Drift does catch the courier, the courier's light armor (2) and modest Hull Points (14) mean it will not survive a sustained exchange. Sev knows this, which is why they will negotiate rather than fight if the crew corners them.

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.