Pregenerated Characters

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The five characters on the following pages are the crew of the Ember Drift. They are ready to play. Hand one to each player at the table, give them five minutes to read it, and begin.

They are the same five characters as the Player's Guide, Chapter Fifteen: legal starting characters built with its creation rules, with the same XP spends, statistics, and gear. This chapter adds what this adventure needs: a portrait, a background, a Wound and Strain track to mark in play, and notes on playing each character in Dead Drop at Harrowspan.

Together they cover the skills a group will need across the adventure: technical problem-solving, navigation and piloting, combat and gunnery, social and information work, and medicine and reconnaissance. No role is essential to the exclusion of others, but the crew works best when its members lean into their strengths and cover each other's gaps.

For the GM: the five characters are written to fit the adventure without requiring any player to have read it. Their backgrounds are suggestive rather than exhaustive, leaving room for players to interpret and improvise.

For players: you do not need to understand every rule on your sheet before the game begins. Read your character description, know your two or three best pools and your talents, and ask the GM when you want to try something.

How to Read Your Sheet

Characteristics are your six raw aptitudes. Every starting character begins at 2 in each, adjusts one up and one down, and buys more with XP.

Pool shows the dice you roll for a skill: the higher of the characteristic and the skill rank sets the number of dice, and the lower sets how many of them are upgraded from Ability Dice to Mastery Dice (Chapter Two). A skill you have no rank in rolls Ability Dice equal to the characteristic. Situational Boon Dice and Bane Dice from species traits, talents, and gear are added at the table.

Wound Points are 10 + Might, and Strain Points are 10 + Willpower. Mark Wounds and Strain on the tracks as they are suffered; when either track is full, the character is incapacitated.

Resistance is half Might, rounded up, plus armor. Subtract it from each hit's damage.

Profession marks a skill on the character's Background or Career list; Out-of-profession marks one bought at the higher cost. XP Spent shows how the character was built (Player's Guide, Chapter Three); you do not need it to play.

Species package lists trait names only; the Player's Guide, Chapter Five holds each trait's full rules.

Davan Kel

Human Engineer. Shipborn. The one who keeps the Ember Drift running.

Davan Kel is a broad-shouldered man in his early forties, perpetually squinting into something that needs fixing. He talks to machines more than to people, not because he dislikes people, but because machines respond predictably. He bought a partial stake in the Ember Drift two years ago because it was the first thing he had ever owned a share of, and he intends to keep it running until the hull gives out. Whatever that takes.

Hook: Someone at the firm that left Davan its debt wants the work order behind that debt to stay buried, and has started asking where he docks.

All characteristics start at 2. Free adjustment: Intellect +1, Charisma −1. Intellect then bought to 4.

Wounds (12): ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

Strain (12): ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

Skills

Profession skills (Shipborn and Engineer): Pilot, Craft, Perception, Streetwise, Science, Electronics, Athletics, Fortitude.

Species Package

Human: Familiar Infrastructure, Cultural Adaptability (once per session), standard gravity thresholds.

Talents

• Tinkerer (Tier 1, free starting talent): when repairing with scavenged, mismatched, or improvised components, remove 1 Bane Die caused by those components. With at least an hour and any plausible salvage, Davan can attempt a repair that would otherwise need a specific part he does not have.
• Stress Engineer (Tier 2): remove 1 Bane Die caused by time pressure, danger, noise, or distraction from Craft or Electronics checks made under fire, during active system failures, or in crisis conditions.

Attacks

Davan carries no weapon. Unarmed: (Might 2, Unarmed 0), Damage 2, Crit 5, Engaged.

XP Spent

Starting XP 110. XP carried forward: 5 XP.

This is the worked example in the Player's Guide, Chapter Three, with 15 of the 20 XP he carried forward now spent on Perception 1 and Stress Engineer.

Gear

• Starting kit: working clothes, personal communicator, emergency rations for three days.
• Engineer profession kit: basic toolkit, diagnostic scanner, bypass cables and splices, two canisters of patch compound.
• Bought: Engineer's kit (ship-rated) (400cr), Portable power cell (100cr), Glow-rods and hand lamp (20cr).
• Starting credits: 900cr; spent 520cr; left 380cr.

The ship-rated engineer's kit adds 1 Boon Die to Craft checks on ship systems, and the diagnostic scanner adds 1 Boon Die to Craft checks to find a fault before a repair (Player's Guide, Chapter Nine). Davan owns no armor or pressure suit yet.

Languages: Standard. The GM may grant Funtari for his Kerath Station upbringing.

Background

Davan grew up on Kerath Station, a mid-ring industrial colony in Funtari space where the work was steel fabrication and the culture was shift length and debt management. He learned engines before he could read contract law, which he has regretted at intervals ever since. A corporate logistics firm hired him young, worked him long, and then shed its fringe operations during a restructuring that left him holding a maintenance debt he did not incur. He took the buy-in on the Ember Drift from a Dhoran salvager who wanted out. He has never discussed the debt with the crew and does not intend to.

Playing Davan in Dead Drop at Harrowspan

Davan is the crew's safety margin. In Scene Five he takes Engineering: Boost Power, Manage Heat or Vent Heat, and Emergency Repair are his Actions (Chapter Nine), and his ship-rated engineer's kit adds 1 Boon Die to Craft checks on ship systems. When the Sentinel's ion fire stacks System Damage on the Ember Drift, his Emergency Repair is the only thing pulling it back down, and Stress Engineer removes a Bane Die from those checks under fire.

In Harrowspan, use Davan as the one who notices practical details others miss: that the cargo hold was repressurized recently, that the docking collar shows scorch marks, that a relay terminal has been accessed in the last twelve hours. He will say the honest thing at the wrong moment; let Corin take the lead in a negotiation.

Senna Vael

Ossen Pilot. Academic. The one who gets them out.

Senna Vael does not talk much during transit, but she talks constantly during maneuvers: terse, precise narration of what she is doing and what the ship is about to experience. Crew who have flown with her long enough learn to read her tone rather than her words. Calm narration means routine. Clipped narration means she is working. Silence means everyone should brace. She grew up inside Irnan Directorate space and she understands the Irnan system from the inside, which gives her respect for its competence and no illusions about what it costs.

Hook: An Irnan inspector who flew the corridor routes with Senna has just been posted to Merrow Gate, and he remembers why she left.

All characteristics start at 2. Free adjustment: Agility +1, Charisma −1. Agility then bought to 4.

Wounds (12): ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

Strain (12): ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

Skills

Profession skills (Academic and Pilot): Lore, Science, Medicine, Astrogation, Pilot, Perception, Reflexes, Craft.

Species Package

Ossen: Analytical Memory, Fine Manipulation, Interface Discipline, Light Frame, Fitted Gear, and the Ossen gravity line (every band one band worse; Low gravity no penalty).

Talents

• Evasive Instinct (Tier 1, free starting talent): once per encounter, when her ship is targeted by a weapon attack or a collision, add 1 Boon Die to a Pilot check made to evade, break contact, or reduce incoming damage.
• Slipstream Reader (Tier 2; requires Astrogation 2): add 1 Boon Die to Astrogation checks to plot a course, identify hazards, or time entry and exit in a Slipstream corridor. With 2 or more Boons on such a check, spend 2 to cut transit time or avoid a corridor hazard without a follow-up check.

Attacks

Standard sidearm: (Agility 4, Ranged 0), Damage 6, Crit 3, Medium, Ballistic.

XP Spent

Starting XP 105. XP carried forward: 0 XP.

Gear

• Starting kit: clothing, personal communicator, emergency rations for three days.
• Pilot profession kit: navigation chart set for the Meridian Verge, hardened datapad.
• Bought: Flight suit (300cr), Standard sidearm (300cr).
• Starting credits: 900cr; spent 600cr; left 300cr.

Her flight suit is fitted to an Ossen frame (bought at creation, Player's Guide, Chapter Nine), so Fitted Gear does not apply while she wears it. It is Sealed for 5 minutes.

Languages: Standard and Irnan (Academic background).

Background

Senna grew up in Tessavar, a mid-tier Irnan administrative world known for orderly transit schedules and correct paperwork. She studied navigation at a Directorate technical institute and flew Irnan civilian corridor routes for four years before something changed her calculation. She does not volunteer what it was. What she will say, if pressed, is that she saw how the Directorate's order functioned in practice for people who did not fit its assumptions, and decided she would rather work a ship she trusted than a system she could not. She found the Ember Drift through a posting board at Port Meridian and has been at the helm for two years.

Playing Senna in Dead Drop at Harrowspan

Senna is the crew's way out. In Scene Five she takes the Helm and rolls the ship's Initiative. Her Evasive Maneuver puts a Bane Die on every attack against the ship, and once per encounter Evasive Instinct adds 1 Boon Die to a Pilot check to evade when the ship is targeted. She can also cover Astrogation from the Helm to plot the jump, at 1 Bane Die for the second station, with Slipstream Reader's Boon Die on the same check.

In port, her Perception 2 and Analytical Memory make her the one who notices that the docking schedule has been altered, or that the Irnan cutter across the ring has its transponder lit wrong. When Inspector Oll appears, her years on Irnan corridor routes tell her exactly when Directorate procedure is being bent.

Yessica Morn

Zosa Gunner. Military. The one who ends the argument.

Yessica Morn is quiet in the way that expensive equipment is quiet: composed, maintained, and capable of producing a very large result on very short notice. She does not perform threat. She does not need to. She has been on six ships in eight years, and if you ask her why she keeps moving, she will tell you that she has not found one yet that was worth stopping for. She is reconsidering the Ember Drift.

Hook: Yessica parted badly with two former employers and checks every port's docking list before she leaves the ship; one of those names has just appeared at Port Meridian.

All characteristics start at 2. Free adjustment: Agility +1, Charisma −1. Agility then bought to 4.

Predator Reflexes adds 1 Boon Die to either Initiative check when it is made to detect an ambush, track sudden movement, read a stalking threat, or register imminent violence.

Wounds (12): ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

Strain (12): ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

Skills

Profession skills (Military and Gunner): Ranged, Athletics, Readiness, Leadership, Fortitude, Gunnery, Electronics, Perception.

Species Package

Zosa: Low-Light Eyes, Predator Reflexes, Balanced Motion, Burst Movement, High Metabolism, and the Zosa gravity line (remove 1 Bane Die from gravity-related movement and balance outside Normal).

Talents

• Fire Control (Tier 1, free starting talent): add 1 Boon Die to her first Gunnery check in a structured encounter.
• Boarding Ready (Tier 1): remove 1 Bane Die from checks to breach, enter, or move through a hostile ship during a boarding action.

Attacks

Standard sidearm: (Agility 4, Ranged 2), Damage 6, Crit 3, Medium, Ballistic.

Combat knife: (Might 2, Melee 0), Damage 3 (Might +1), Crit 3, Engaged, Cutting, Pierce 1, Concealable 1.

XP Spent

Starting XP 85. XP carried forward: 0 XP.

Gear

• Starting kit: clothing, personal communicator, emergency rations for three days (species-appropriate).
• Gunner profession kit: basic toolkit, personal scanner.
• Bought: Flight suit (300cr), Standard sidearm (300cr), Combat knife (70cr).
• Starting credits: 900cr; spent 670cr; left 230cr.

Her flight suit is fitted to a Zosa frame (bought at creation). The personal scanner adds 1 Boon Die to sensor-aided Perception checks. High Metabolism matters when rations run short.

Languages: Standard. The GM may grant Shoiyan for her upbringing.

Background

Yessica grew up in a Shoiyan port city where Zosa communities were large enough to be visible and small enough to be expendable when the economy contracted. She shipped out at seventeen on a security contract, found she was better at it than expected, and has been selling that skill ever since. She does not have enemies exactly, but she has history with two or three employers that means she does not transit through certain systems without checking who else is in port. The Ember Drift is small enough that nobody is watching it, which she values more than she usually admits.

Playing Yessica in Dead Drop at Harrowspan

Yessica takes Gunnery in Scene Five. Fire Control adds 1 Boon Die to her first Gunnery check of the encounter, and as a talent die it does not count toward the Boon Limit, so Corin's Direct Focus and Rhi's Target Lock can still add their two. On a boarding action or in a station corridor she is the crew's best shot.

Her Initiative pools are the steadiest on the crew when something goes wrong without warning, and Predator Reflexes adds a Boon Die when she is reading an ambush. She is observant: the player may say "Yessica notices something is wrong" without knowing exactly what, and let the GM supply the detail.

Corin Ash

Dhoran Face. Coreworlder. The one who talks first.

Corin Ash wears good clothes, carries a name that may not be original, and has the particular stillness of someone who has learned to let other people fill silence. He is patient, professionally warm, and difficult to read. The crew trusts him because he has never once let the crew down in a social situation, and because the one time someone asked directly about his past, he gave a detailed and entirely plausible answer that explained nothing at all.

Hook: Someone at Port Meridian has just addressed Corin by the first of his three names.

All characteristics start at 2. Free adjustment: Charisma +1, Agility −1. Charisma then bought to 4.

Wounds (12): ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

Strain (12): ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

Skills

Untrained, Leadership rolls 4 Ability Dice (Charisma 4). Intimidation uses Willpower and rolls 2.

Profession skills (Coreworlder and Face): Lore, Negotiation, Leadership, Deception, Charm, Intimidation.

Species Package

Dhoran: Dense Frame, Impact Tolerance, Hard to Shift, Slow Acceleration, Heavy Requirements, and the Dhoran gravity line (every band one band better; 1 Bane Die to precision movement in Low gravity).

Talents

• Border Savvy (Tier 1, free starting talent): remove 1 Bane Die from Deception, Negotiation, or Streetwise checks to pass a checkpoint, avoid a customs search, or get through bureaucratic scrutiny.
• Silver Words (Tier 2): when he succeeds on a Negotiation or Charm check with 2 or more Boons, he may spend them to leave a lasting positive impression; the NPC will not work against him without additional cause.
• Controlled Presence (Tier 2): add 1 Boon Die to Leadership or Negotiation checks where staying calm under provocation matters, and remove 1 Bane Die from Readiness or Willpower checks to resist social baiting.

Attacks

Hold-out pistol: (Agility 1, Ranged 0), Damage 4, Crit 4, Short, Ballistic, Concealable 2, Limited Ammo 3. He carries it to get through a search, and he loses most gunfights.

XP Spent

Starting XP 105. XP carried forward: 0 XP.

Gear

• Starting kit: good clothing, personal communicator, emergency rations for three days.
• Face profession kit: encrypted comm unit, personal datapad.
• Bought: Mesh undersuit (400cr), Hold-out pistol (200cr).
• Starting credits: 1,250cr; spent 600cr; left 650cr.

The mesh undersuit is armor with Concealable 2, rated for his mass. He keeps the remaining credits for fees, fines, and the occasional bribe (Player's Guide, Chapter Nine, What a Credit Is Worth).

Languages: Standard and Antaean (Coreworlder background).

Background

Corin has worked under three different names in two different powers over the past decade. He is not a criminal in any active sense: no outstanding warrants, no open debts, no contracts he has broken with violence. He simply departed a situation in a city he does not name, took a name that suited the work better, and rebuilt from there. He is good at what he does. He likes the crew. He is quietly uncertain whether he deserves to. The right question, asked at the right moment, would open something, but he has not found anyone willing to ask it right yet.

Playing Corin in Dead Drop at Harrowspan

Corin handles first contact. When the crew meets someone new (Inspector Oll, station staff, Sev, anyone with information), put him in front: Negotiation, Deception, and Charm are his best pools. Border Savvy removes a Bane Die when he talks the crew through a checkpoint, a customs search, or bureaucratic scrutiny, which is exactly what Oll's inspection is. Silver Words rewards building relationships across the adventure rather than just getting past gatekeepers, and Controlled Presence keeps him steady when Sev or Oll pushes.

In Scene Five he holds no station and acts as captain, using Direct Focus each round. Keep him out of a firefight's opening seconds: his Initiative pools are weak, his Agility is 1, and he has no Perception training.

Rhi

Hazren Medic. Pilgrim. The one who notices.

Rhi does not introduce herself with a last name. On ships where people ask, she says the coil-name system does not translate and leaves it there. She is tall and still in the particular Hazren way: not watchful in any visible sense, just present in a room the way a warm radiator is present. She became a field medic because a coil-hall she traveled through needed one and she was the person there. She stayed a medic because it turned out she was built for it: patient, precise, and capable of holding someone together under conditions that would break most people's concentration entirely.

Hook: The healers' network Rhi left has started sending her messages again, and the latest one asks for a favor.

All characteristics start at 2. Free adjustment: Intellect +1, Charisma −1. Intellect then bought to 4.

Wounds (12): ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

Strain (12): ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

Skills

Profession skills (Pilgrim and Medic): Lore, Charm, Survival, Medicine, Science, Perception, Fortitude.

Thermal Sense adds 1 Boon Die to her Perception, Survival, medical triage, and tracking checks where heat traces, body warmth, active machinery, or temperature differences matter.

Species Package

Hazren: Coil Body, Constricting Strength, Thermal Sense, Unsuitable Terrain, Adapted Stations, and the Hazren gravity line (1 more Bane Die to upright posture in High gravity and above; remove 1 Bane Die from Athletics in microgravity).

Talents

• Field Stabilization (Tier 1, free starting talent): when giving field treatment with improvised materials to end Bleeding or to satisfy a Critical Injury that calls for medical aid, remove 1 Bane Die from the Medicine check. On a success, the patient suffers no further Wounds from that effect until new harm.
• Quiet Approach (Tier 1): in structured combat, after she uses a Maneuver to move Engaged with a wounded or incapacitated ally, attacks against her add 1 Bane Die until the start of her next turn if she makes no attack. She also adds 1 Boon Die to Stealth checks while moving to reach someone who needs care during combat.
• Diagnostic Eye (Tier 2): after watching a person for a moment, she may make a Medicine or Perception check to learn whether they are injured, ill, physiologically frightened, or misrepresenting their physical condition. Her Thermal Sense adds 1 Boon Die to this check.

Attacks

Combat knife: (Might 2, Melee 0), Damage 3 (Might +1), Crit 3, Engaged, Cutting, Pierce 1, Concealable 1.

XP Spent

Starting XP 100. XP carried forward: 0 XP.

Gear

• Starting kit: clothing, personal communicator, emergency rations for three days.
• Medic profession kit: field medkit, two stimpacks, species-specific medical pack (Ossen).
• Bought: Flight suit (300cr), Combat knife (70cr).
• Starting credits: 650cr; spent 370cr; left 280cr.

The field medkit adds 1 Boon Die to Medicine checks, and the Ossen pack removes all Bane Dice from Medicine checks treating an Ossen patient (Player's Guide, Chapter Nine). Her flight suit is fitted to a Hazren body; an unfitted suit would give her no vacuum protection.

Languages: Standard. The GM may grant Jaziri for her years on the pilgrim routes.

Background

Rhi traveled pilgrimage routes through Jaziri-adjacent space for the first twelve years of her adult life, part of a network of Hazren healers attached to route-shrine communities. She left the network quietly and without drama after a disagreement she describes only as "a question of obligation." She found ships because ships need medics, and medics with Hazren thermal sense are genuinely more capable in field diagnosis than most alternatives. She does not miss the pilgrim network exactly. She misses knowing what she was for.

Playing Rhi in Dead Drop at Harrowspan

Rhi is the crew's eyes and its healer. Her Perception pool is 2 Mastery Dice, and Thermal Sense adds a Boon Die wherever heat matters: someone recently present in the cold cargo corridors below the Harrowspan spine, a person hiding behind a bulkhead, the warm ghost of a power source that should be off. Let Rhi notice things.

Diagnostic Eye tells her whether someone is injured, ill, frightened, or misrepresenting their physical state, which is as useful with Sev or Rinn as with a patient. Field Stabilization keeps a Bleeding crewmate from losing more Wounds. Her Stealth makes her the quiet option for reaching Maren's office unseen. In Scene Five she takes Medical and Support, or Sensors and Comms, where she is untrained and rolls 4 Ability Dice. The Ember Drift's medical alcove and her station were adapted for her long ago, so Adapted Stations does not apply aboard.

Crew Quick Reference

Shared crew resource: the Ember Drift is everyone's ship. All five characters have a stake in it surviving.