A Rulebook of Grimdark Cosmic Horror Space Opera
Version 0.1
Introduction
Somewhere between the collapse of the Second Expansion and whatever comes next, humanity and its fellow travelers drift through a galaxy that was never built for them. The stars are dying, the void hides things that were old before the first star ignited, and every jump beacon is a small prayer that you’ll come out the other side still yourself.
Wormwood Drift is a complete, table-ready ruleset for running grimdark cosmic horror in a space opera frame: crumbling empires, predatory corporations, desperate crews, and the things in the dark that don’t care about any of it. This book contains everything a group needs to play — task resolution, character creation, combat, starships, psionics, trade, and a referee’s toolkit for building sectors and running horrors — in a single volume meant to be read once and run from indefinitely.
What you need: a handful of six-sided dice (2d6 per roll, plus a scattering of d10s & d6s for Boons and Banes), pencils, character sheets, and players willing to lose a little of themselves to survive.
Tone at the table. Wormwood Drift is not about winning against the dark — it’s about how much of yourself you’re willing to spend to survive it a little longer. Player characters should be competent, resourceful, and rewarded for cleverness; the universe should never be. Keep victories real but costly, keep horrors rare but genuine, and let Scars and Madness accumulate into character rather than punishment.
Table of Contents
- Core Mechanics
- Character Creation
- Skills & Tasks
- Personal Combat
- Equipment & Gear
- Psionics
- Starships & Space Combat
- Trade & Economy
- World & Adventure Generation
- Appendices
- Supplement: Cosmic Horrors
1. Core Mechanics
Everything in Wormwood Drift resolves through one engine. Learn it once.
1.1 The Roll
Whenever the outcome is uncertain and failure is interesting, roll 2d6 + Attribute + Skill and compare the total to a Target Number (TN) set by the referee.
| TN | Difficulty | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | Routine | Forcing a stuck airlock |
| 8 | Standard | Patching a hull breach under pressure |
| 10 | Challenging | Talking down a mutinous crew |
| 12 | Formidable | Threading a derelict’s collapsing debris field |
| 14 | Extreme | Overriding a corpse-ship’s core while it wakes up |
| 16+ | Nearly Impossible | Outrunning something that shouldn’t be able to move that fast |
Meet or beat the TN: you succeed. Fall short: you fail, and the referee narrates a cost, complication, or a simple no.
1.2 Attributes
Four Attributes describe a character’s raw capability, each scored 0–4 (2 is human average; see Character Creation for how starting scores are built).
- Might — muscle, endurance, violence at close range
- Agility — reflexes, coordination, grace under fire
- Wits — perception, reasoning, technical aptitude
- Presence — force of will, charisma, and the stubbornness that keeps a mind intact when the universe tries to unmake it
1.3 Boon & Bane
Circumstances beyond the raw roll are represented by Boon dice and Bane dice — d6s added to the pool by advantageous or adverse conditions (good cover, foul weather, superior gear, the wrong kind of attention).
Before rolling: cancel Boons against Banes one-for-one. What remains is your net dice.
- Net Boons: roll that many extra d6 alongside your 2d6. Keep the highest 2 dice in the whole pool.
- Net Banes: roll that many extra d6 alongside your 2d6. Keep the lowest 2 dice in the whole pool.
- Net dice are capped at ±3. A situation that would grant more simply auto-succeeds or auto-fails at the referee’s discretion.
Referee’s Note: Don’t stack Boons for every small advantage. One or two sources of Boon or Bane per roll keeps the dice pool fast and keeps individual advantages meaningful.
1.4 Effect
Success is rarely just “yes.” Effect measures how well you succeeded:
Effect = (Total Roll − TN), minimum 0, capped at +3 unless a rule states otherwise.
Effect adds to damage, shortens time taken, improves the quality of information gained, or otherwise sweetens a success — the referee applies it narratively wherever no explicit rule covers the case.
1.5 Criticals
If the two dice you keep and add together are both 6s, you’ve scored a Critical Success — the action succeeds automatically regardless of TN, and Effect gains +2. If the two dice you keep are both 1s, you’ve scored a Catastrophe — the action fails regardless of what the total would have been, and the referee introduces a complication that outlasts the scene.
1.6 Opposed Rolls
When two characters act directly against each other (a grapple, a bluff, a duel of wills), both roll 2d6 + Attribute + Skill; the higher total wins, and Effect is the margin between the two results.
1.7 Resolve
Alongside Might, Agility, Wits, and Presence, every character tracks Resolve — a fifth pool, not an Attribute, equal to 10 + Wits + Presence. Resolve is a character’s mental defense against dread, madness, and psionic backlash. It is spent throughout play and recovers in full after meaningful rest between sessions.
At 0 Resolve, a character is Broken: every roll suffers a permanent Bane die until Resolve rises above 0, and the referee may call for an immediate roll on the Madness Table (Section 6.3), whether or not psionics are involved. See Section 4.4 for Resolve lost to fear in combat, Section 6.2 for Resolve spent on psionics, and Section 11 for Resolve lost to horrors directly.
1.8 Worked Example
Mireille (Agility 3, Stealth 2) tries to slip past a checkpoint. The referee sets TN 10 (Challenging — the guards are alert). Poor lighting grants a Boon; her torn jacket snagging on a rail imposes a Bane. They cancel, leaving a flat 2d6+3+2 roll. She rolls a 4 and a 5 — total 9, plus her modifiers: 9+3+2 = 14. That beats TN 10 by 4, capped to Effect +3 — she doesn’t just get past, she also has time to palm something off a supply crate on the way through.
2. Character Creation
Characters in Wormwood Drift are built through a Directed Lifepath — four guided stages that produce a complete, playable person with history, scars, and reasons to be out here instead of somewhere safer. Every Attribute begins at 1; Background and Career terms raise them from there, so most characters finish chargen sitting at 2–3 in their strongest Attributes.
Design Note — No Death at Character Creation. Older lifepath games famously let you die before play starts, rolling badly on a career table and never making it to the table. Wormwood Drift removes that entirely. Every failed roll during character creation produces a Scar — a survivable cost — instead of a corpse. The grimdark belongs to play, not to chargen.
2.1 Stage One — Origin
Choose a Background (see 2.5). This sets a starting Attribute bonus, a free skill rank, a piece of signature gear, and one Scar.
2.2 Stage Two — Formative Event
Roll or choose one event from the table below. Each grants a skill rank and a Scar of its own — the thing that shaped you before you ever left home.
| d10 | Formative Event | Grants |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Survived a colony collapse | Survival; Scar: flinches at sudden silence |
| 2 | Raised by a religious order | Occultism; Scar: haunted by a broken vow |
| 3 | Indentured to a corporation | Streetwise; Scar: owes a debt that never shrinks |
| 4 | Lost a sibling to the Drift | Navigation; Scar: won’t fly the same route twice |
| 5 | Trained in a military academy | Gun Combat; Scar: obeys orders, even bad ones |
| 6 | Apprenticed to a smuggler | Pilot; Scar: can’t resist a locked door |
| 7 | Witnessed a First Contact go wrong | Lore; Scar: −1 Resolve around unknown xenoforms |
| 8 | Grew up in a derelict habitat | Engineer; Scar: hoards scrap obsessively |
| 9 | Studied under a mind-touched mystic | Willpower; Scar: hears things that aren’t there, rarely |
| 10 | Escaped indenture through violence | Melee; Scar: can’t be touched without warning |
2.3 Stage Three — Career (2–3 Terms)
Choose a Career Path for each of 2–3 terms (roughly four years apiece). Each term grants two skill ranks — allocated as the player likes among the Path’s listed skills — a piece of gear, a Contact, and raises one Attribute by +1 (maximum 4). You may repeat a Path or switch between terms; this is a career, not a sentence, though it can feel like one.
| Path | Skills Offered | Typical Gear |
|---|---|---|
| Void Corps | Gun Combat, Pilot, Survival | Sidearm, void suit |
| Merchant Marine | Pilot, Persuade, Engineer | Trade goods, cargo manifest |
| Corporate Enforcer | Gun Combat, Command, Streetwise | Armor, corporate credentials |
| Scavenger Crew | Engineer, Survival, Stealth | Cutting torch, scrap detector |
| Colonial Militia | Gun Combat, Command, Medicine | Rifle, field kit |
| Cult Initiate | Occultism, Willpower, Lore | Ritual tools, forbidden text |
| Xenoarchaeologist | Lore, Navigation, Medicine | Field scanner, sample kit |
Every term carries a chance of a Hard Term: after choosing skills, roll 2d6. On a 2, this term went badly — take an additional Scar instead of the Attribute increase, but keep every skill and item gained. You are never removed from play; you are simply marked by it.
2.4 Stage Four — Muster Out
Roll or choose one Muster Out benefit per completed term: extra credits, a rank or title within your final Path, a ship-share, or a Rival (an NPC who remembers you badly). Finish with starting credits equal to (Terms × 1,000cr) plus any Muster Out credit results.
2.5 Backgrounds
| Background | Attribute Bonus | Free Skill | Signature Gear | Scar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colonial Stock | +1 Might | Survival | Worn tool-kit | Distrusts corporate tech |
| Void-Born | +1 Agility | Pilot | Personal void suit | −1 Resolve under open sky |
| Corporate Scion | +1 Presence | Persuade | Credit chip, false name | Someone is always watching |
| Hive-Descended | +1 Wits | Engineer | Neural interface jack | Discomfort in true solitude |
| Machine-Grafted | +1 Might | Engineer | Integral cyberlimb | −1 Resolve near AI collapse |
2.6 Broad & Narrow Skills
Every skill in Wormwood Drift is learned at the Broad level first — general competence across a whole field — and may later be deepened into a Narrow specialization (see Section 3.2, Cascades). Broad ranks range 0–3; a Narrow specialization adds a further +1 (Focused) or +2 (Expert) when the exact task matches it.
2.7 Scars
A Scar is a permanent, one-line trait with a small, consistent mechanical effect — usually a Bane die in a specific, recurring circumstance — written collaboratively by player and referee at the moment it’s earned. Scars are never removed. They are collected, and by the time a character carries three or four, players often find they’ve become the most interesting thing on the sheet.
3. Skills & Tasks
3.1 The Consolidated List
Wormwood Drift uses eighteen Broad Skills — enough to cover the game’s full scope without drowning a character sheet.
| Skill | Category | Attribute | Cascades Into |
|---|---|---|---|
| Athletics | Physical | Might | — |
| Melee | Physical | Might | Blades, Improvised, Powered |
| Stealth | Physical | Agility | — |
| Gun Combat | Physical | Agility | Slug, Energy, Archaic |
| Perception | Physical | Wits | — |
| Pilot | Technical | Agility | Grav, Void, Void-Jump |
| Engineer | Technical | Wits | Drives, Life Support, Weapons |
| Hacking | Technical | Wits | — |
| Medicine | Technical | Wits | Trauma, Xenobiology |
| Persuade | Social | Presence | — |
| Deceive | Social | Presence | — |
| Command | Social | Presence | — |
| Streetwise | Social | Presence | — |
| Lore | Knowledge | Wits | Xeno, Occult, Corporate, Colonial |
| Navigation | Knowledge | Wits | — |
| Survival | Knowledge | Wits | — |
| Occultism | Occult | Presence | — |
| Willpower | Occult | Presence | — |
Physical skills cover the body: what it can do, take, and notice. Technical skills keep ships flying, systems working, and bodies alive. Social skills cover what you can get other people to do. Knowledge skills cover what you know and where you can survive. Occult skills cover the game’s psionic and horror-adjacent mechanics — see Sections 6 and 11.
3.2 Cascades
A Cascade is a Broad Skill that branches into two or more Narrow Specializations. When you use a Broad Skill outside any specialization you hold, apply your full Broad rank. When the task matches a Narrow Specialization you’ve taken, add the Focused or Expert bonus on top.
Example: Kess has Gun Combat 2 (Broad) and Gun Combat: Slug (Focused, +1). Firing an unfamiliar energy rifle, she rolls 2d6 + Agility + 2. Firing her own slug pistol, she rolls 2d6 + Agility + 2 + 1.
3.3 Filling the Gaps
Two categories are easy to shortchange in space opera games, so Wormwood Drift gives each real weight:
- Social: Persuade, Deceive, Command, and Streetwise each cover distinct ground — Persuade earns willing cooperation, Deceive plants a false belief, Command compels through authority or fear, Streetwise finds what a place doesn’t advertise.
- Technical: Engineer and Hacking are split deliberately — Engineer keeps a ship’s body alive, Hacking fights for control of its mind. A ship can be mechanically sound and still be lost to whoever owns its systems.
3.4 Untrained Use
A character with 0 ranks in a skill may still attempt most tasks, rolling 2d6 + Attribute only, with a Bane die if the task requires real training (Medicine, Hacking, Pilot, Engineer, Occultism). Pure Attribute checks — Athletics, Perception, raw Willpower — never carry this penalty.
4. Personal Combat
4.1 Stamina & Lifeblood
Every character has two combat pools, on top of Resolve (Section 1.7):
- Stamina = 10 + Might + Agility. Represents grit, footing, and the will to keep fighting. Damage comes here first.
- Lifeblood = 5 + Might. Represents the body itself. Once Stamina hits 0, further damage is taken directly from Lifeblood.
At 0 Stamina, a character is Winded — every roll gains a Bane die until Stamina recovers above 0 (a Standard Athletics or Medicine check in a lull restores 1d6 Stamina). At 0 Lifeblood, a character is Dying: unconscious, bleeding out, and will die in a number of rounds equal to their Might unless stabilized by a Medicine check (TN 10).
Character creation guarantees you reach the table. Nothing after that does.
4.2 Attacking
Roll 2d6 + Attribute + Skill against the target’s Defense: 8 + their Agility + situational Boon/Bane. On a hit, roll the weapon’s damage dice and add Effect, then subtract the target’s Armor (see 5.2) before applying the remainder to Stamina, then Lifeblood.
4.3 Dynamic Initiative
Initiative is not fixed for a whole fight — it’s fought for every round.
At the start of each round, every combatant rolls 2d6 + Agility (no skill) as a Reflex Check; the highest total acts first, descending from there. Before rolling, a character may declare:
- Reckless — gain a Boon on the Reflex Check, but take a Bane on your first action this round.
- Cautious — take a Bane on the Reflex Check, but gain a Boon on your first action this round.
This is re-rolled every round, so the turn order — and the tension of choosing when to be bold — shifts constantly.
4.4 Resolve in Combat
Facing something genuinely wrong — a xenoform that moves incorrectly, a corpse that’s still talking — calls for a Resolve Check (2d6 + Presence + Willpower vs a TN set by the horror’s Fear Rating; see Section 11.2). Failure costs Resolve equal to the Fear Rating and may impose the Shaken condition: a Bane on all rolls until the scene ends.
4.5 Called Shots
Targeting a specific location — a weapon hand, an exposed joint in armor, a sensor lens — imposes a Bane on the attack roll but ignores a number of points of Armor equal to the attacker’s Effect. Riskier, but often the only reliable way through heavy plating.
4.6 Worked Example
Dray (Agility 3, Gun Combat 2) fires his slug rifle at a raider in Light Composite armor (DR 2, Defense 9). He rolls a 6 and a 4 — total 10 — plus Agility 3 and Gun Combat 2, for 15: a hit, with Effect 3 (capped). His slug rifle deals 3d6; he rolls an 8, adds Effect 3, for 11, then subtracts the raider’s Armor 2. The raider takes 9 damage to Stamina — likely enough to drop them to 0 and leave them Winded before the fight is even half over.
5. Equipment & Gear
5.1 Weapons
| Weapon | Damage | Range | Cost | Traits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Combat Knife | 1d6+Might | Reach | 20cr | Silent |
| Vibro-Blade | 2d6+Might | Reach | 150cr | Armor Piercing 1 |
| Slug Pistol | 2d6 | Short | 100cr | Reliable |
| Slug Rifle | 3d6 | Long | 300cr | Two-Handed |
| Energy Carbine | 2d6+1 | Medium | 600cr | Overheats on Catastrophe |
| Scattergun | 3d6 | Short | 250cr | Bane beyond Short range |
| Grenade | 4d6 | Thrown | 80cr | Area, one use |
5.2 Armor
| Armor | DR | Encumbrance | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Padded Undersuit | 1 | 1 slot | 50cr |
| Light Composite | 2 | 2 slots | 400cr |
| Military Hardsuit | 3 | 3 slots | 1,200cr |
| Powered Exoframe | 4 | 4 slots | 5,000cr (requires Engineer to maintain) |
Armor’s DR is subtracted from every hit that connects, after Effect is added to the damage roll.
5.3 Tech & Field Gear
- Void Suit — survive vacuum for hours, not days; encumbers Stealth.
- Field Medkit — grants a Boon on Medicine checks; 3 uses before resupply.
- Scanner Rig — grants a Boon on Perception or Lore checks made to identify a contact or anomaly.
- Cyberware — mechanical augmentation grants a fixed bonus to one Attribute-based task, but each installed piece costs 1 point of maximum Resolve, permanently, until removed by a qualified surgeon (Medicine TN 12).
5.4 Encumbrance
Every character can carry Might + 4 slots of gear without penalty. Each slot over that limit imposes a cumulative Bane die on Athletics, Stealth, and Reflex Checks. Most handheld gear is 1 slot; armor and heavy tools cost as listed above.
6. Psionics
Not everyone who touches the dark between stars comes back with only nightmares. Some come back changed.
6.1 Disciplines
Psionics are organized into six Disciplines, each with three Tiers of power. A character needs the Occultism skill and a Willpower rank of at least 1 to access a Discipline at all, and may take Disciplines only up to their Willpower rank — nobody masters all six.
| Discipline | Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Telepathy | Surface read | Send a thought | Force a compulsion |
| Precognition | Flash of danger | Short foresight | Reroll fate itself |
| Biokinesis | Numb pain | Accelerate healing | Rewrite a wound |
| Telekinesis | Nudge an object | Lift and throw | Crush from a distance |
| Void-Sight | Sense a Ghost is wrong | See through a Ghost’s disguise | See what a horror actually is |
| Astral Projection | Brief out-of-body glimpse | Travel a short distance | Leave the body behind entirely |
Using any power is a task: 2d6 + Presence + Occultism vs a TN set by Tier (Tier 1: TN 8; Tier 2: TN 11; Tier 3: TN 14).
6.2 Cost & Madness
Every psionic attempt — success or failure — costs 1 Resolve per Tier attempted. A character at 0 Resolve cannot safely use psionics at all; attempting anyway is an automatic Catastrophe.
6.3 Pushing
A failed psionic roll may be Pushed: reroll it once, but take an additional point of Resolve damage and roll on the Madness Table below, regardless of whether the pushed roll succeeds.
| d10 | Madness (roll once per Push, or whenever Resolve hits 0) |
|---|---|
| 1–2 | Minor — a tremor, a stammer, a flinch. Fades with a night’s rest. |
| 3–4 | Fixation — an intrusive compulsion (counting, checking locks, avoiding a color). Lasts the session. |
| 5–6 | Phobia — a specific, debilitating fear (Bane on all rolls when exposed). Lasts until addressed in play. |
| 7–8 | Fracture — a delusion the character genuinely believes. Referee and player build it together. Long-term. |
| 9 | Break — the character is unplayable for the rest of the session; the referee narrates what they do. |
| 10 | Vessel — something used the opening. This is no longer entirely your character’s mind. Permanent; see Section 11.2. |
Risk/Reward: Psionics are powerful specifically because they’re dangerous. A Tier 3 power can turn a losing fight, but the Push that gets you there might cost you the character in a slower, worse way than dying would have.
7. Starships & Space Combat
7.1 Ship Stats
Every ship has Hull (its Lifeblood), Armor (DR against weapons fire), and four Systems: Engines, Weapons, Sensors, Life Support. Each System can be damaged independently — a ship at full Hull can still be blind, unarmed, or drifting.
7.2 Bridge Positions & Action Cards
Space combat runs on Action Cards — a small hand dealt to each bridge station at the start of a combat, representing that station’s real options under fire. Cards are chosen (not drawn randomly) and played simultaneously, then resolved in Dynamic Initiative order (Section 4.3), using the Pilot’s Reflex Check for the whole ship.
| Station | Card | TN | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pilot | Evasive Burn | 10 | Ship gains a Boon against all attacks this round |
| Pilot | Slingshot | 12 | Ship gains an extra action next round |
| Pilot | Ram | 9 | Deals Engine-based damage to both ships; high risk |
| Pilot | Silent Running | 11 | Ship becomes a Ghost to enemy sensors for one round |
| Gunner | Focus Fire | 9 | Attack roll gains a Boon |
| Gunner | Suppressing Volley | 8 | No damage; imposes a Bane on target’s next action |
| Gunner | Called Shot | 11 | Targets a specific enemy System directly |
| Engineer | Reroute Power | 9 | Restores 1d6 to a damaged System |
| Engineer | Emergency Patch | 10 | Restores 1d6 Hull |
| Engineer | Overclock | 12 | Grants a Boon to one other station this round; a Catastrophe imposes a Bane on that station next round |
| Sensors | Lock Contact | 10 | Resolves a Ghost, or grants the Gunner a Boon against it |
| Sensors | Jam | 11 | Imposes a Bane on an enemy’s attacks this round |
| Comms | Hail | 8 | Opens dialogue; may avert combat entirely |
| Comms | Broadcast Distress | 9 | May draw help — or worse — depending on what’s listening |
| Captain | Rally the Crew | 10 | Grants a Boon to one station of the Captain’s choice |
| Captain | Full Stop | — | Automatic; the ship holds position and every station gains Cautious this round |
7.3 Abstracted Missiles
Rather than tracking individual warheads, missile fire resolves as a single Salvo: the firing ship rolls 2d6 + Gunner’s skill against the target’s Point Defense TN. Effect determines how many missiles from the salvo get through — each one that connects deals fixed damage to Hull or a targeted System, bypassing Armor entirely. Nothing wears a hardsuit against a warhead.
7.4 Sensor Ghosts
Every contact beyond Short range starts as a Ghost: an ambiguous blip the referee has fully detailed but the players have not. A Sensors check (TN 10, or TN 14 for a Ghost actively hiding what it is) resolves a Ghost into a known contact — a ship, a derelict, a debris field, or something that was never meant to show up on a scope at all.
Referee’s Note: Not every Ghost needs to be resolved. Half the dread of deep space is the blip that never quite explains itself before it’s gone — or before it’s close.
7.5 Bridge Drama
No single station wins a ship fight alone. A Gunner without a Sensor lock is shooting blind; an Engineer without power routed from somewhere is patching a dead system; a Pilot without a Captain’s call is guessing what the crew actually needs. Build encounters that require at least three stations to cooperate within a single round.
8. Trade & Economy
8.1 Legwork, Not Luck
Cargo doesn’t sell itself, and Wormwood Drift doesn’t let a single lucky roll turn a hold full of goods into a fortune. Selling or buying a shipment is Legwork — a short sequence played out at the table:
- Find a Buyer — Streetwise or a Contact, TN set by how legal (or illegal) the goods are.
- Appraise — Lore or Streetwise, to know what the goods are actually worth here.
- Haggle — Persuade or Deceive, opposed by the buyer’s Presence + Streetwise.
Each step’s Effect adjusts the final price up or down; skipping a step — selling in a hurry, to whoever’s buying — means selling at a flat 50% of listed value with no further rolls.
8.2 Credits & Cargo
Goods are priced abstractly in Cargo Lots (roughly a ship-hold’s worth of a given commodity) rather than tracked unit by unit. A Lot’s base value depends on its legality and the wealth of the world it’s sold on:
| Cargo Lot | Legality | Base Value |
|---|---|---|
| Raw Ore | Legal | 800cr |
| Foodstuffs | Legal | 600cr |
| Manufactured Goods | Legal | 1,200cr |
| Medical Supplies | Restricted | 2,000cr |
| Weapons | Restricted | 2,500cr |
| Unlicensed Xenotech | Illegal | 4,000cr |
| Ritual Artifacts | Illegal | 5,000cr+ (referee sets, if it can be priced at all) |
8.3 Debt, Not Doom
Ships in Wormwood Drift can carry Debt — to a bank, a syndicate, a patron who expects favors instead of interest. Debt is tracked as a segmented Debt Clock (typically 8 segments) rather than a monthly payment that can bankrupt a crew overnight.
- Missing a scheduled payment fills 1 segment.
- A filled clock doesn’t repossess the ship outright — it triggers an escalating complication (a collector aboard, a blacklist at a station, a saboteur) that the crew resolves through play.
- Paying down Debt in a lump sum clears segments directly.
Design Note: Classic ship-mortgage pressure makes for great spreadsheets and exhausting play. Here, debt is a rising story problem, not a monthly math problem — the dread in this game should come from what’s outside the hull, not the bank statement.
9. World & Adventure Generation
9.1 Generating a Sector
A Sector is a grid of systems, generated as needed rather than all at once. For each system the crew approaches, roll or choose:
| Roll (2d6) | Population | Government | Notable Feature |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2–3 | Abandoned | None | Derelict infrastructure |
| 4–5 | Outpost | Corporate Charter | Resource extraction |
| 6–7 | Colony | Council/Elected | Ongoing dispute |
| 8–9 | Established | Autocratic | Strategic chokepoint |
| 10–11 | Major Hub | Imperial Remnant | Something buried nearby |
| 12 | — | — | Roll twice; the world contradicts itself |
Add a one-line Threat to any system that will matter this session — a cult, a corporate blockade, a signal that shouldn’t be repeating.
9.2 Referee Tools
- Countdown Clocks: track threats too large for a single roll (a ship’s hull breach, a cult’s ritual, a system’s descent into blockade) as 4–8 segment clocks that fill on relevant failures or the passage of time.
- Fronts, not Plots: prepare 2–3 active dangers per sector rather than a fixed plot. Let the crew’s choices decide which one reaches the end of its clock first.
9.3 Encounters
| d10 | Deep Space Encounter |
|---|---|
| 1 | Distress beacon, on a loop, days old |
| 2 | Derelict, hull intact, drive core cold |
| 3 | Patrol demanding boarding rights |
| 4 | Debris field hiding something salvageable |
| 5 | Another crew, also running from something |
| 6 | A Sensor Ghost that won’t resolve |
| 7 | Cultist vessel, running dark |
| 8 | Anomalous readings — gravity, time, or both |
| 9 | Pirate wing, opportunistic |
| 10 | Something that was never a ship at all |
9.4 Adventure Seeds
| d6 | Seed |
|---|---|
| 1 | A colony’s entire population is broadcasting the same dream |
| 2 | A corporate ship offers triple pay for a cargo run with no manifest |
| 3 | A derelict matches the registry of a ship reported destroyed decades ago |
| 4 | A Contact calls in a favor that requires breaking into somewhere sealed for a reason |
| 5 | A signal from beyond the sector’s charted edge repeats a single, decaying word |
| 6 | Two Fronts (9.2) are about to collide, and the crew is standing in the middle |
10. Appendices
10.1 Quick Reference
- Core Roll: 2d6 + Attribute + Skill vs TN. Meet or beat to succeed.
- Boon/Bane: cancel 1-for-1; net dice join the pool, keep best 2 (Boon) or worst 2 (Bane).
- Effect: Total − TN, minimum 0, capped at +3.
- Criticals: both kept dice show 6 = Critical Success; both show 1 = Catastrophe.
- Combat: Attack vs Defense (8 + Agility). Damage + Effect − Armor = harm to Stamina, then Lifeblood.
- Initiative: 2d6 + Agility, every round. Reckless/Cautious trade a Reflex Boon/Bane for a first-action Boon/Bane.
- Resolve: 10 + Wits + Presence. 0 Resolve = Broken (permanent Bane, roll Madness).
10.2 NPC Template
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Attributes | Might / Agility / Wits / Presence, typically 1–3 for mooks, up to 4 for named threats |
| Key Skill | One skill at Broad 2–3, relevant to their role |
| Stamina / Lifeblood | Use the PC formula, or a flat 8/6 for disposable mooks |
| Armor | 0–3 as appropriate |
| Special | One distinguishing trait or tactic, no more |
Sample NPCs
- Corporate Enforcer — Might 2, Agility 2, Wits 1, Presence 2. Gun Combat 2. Stamina 12 / Lifeblood 7. Armor 2. Special: calls in reinforcements if Winded.
- Void Cultist — Might 1, Agility 1, Wits 2, Presence 3. Occultism 3. Stamina 8 / Lifeblood 6. Armor 0. Special: immune to Fear from its own patron.
- Scavenger Captain — Might 2, Agility 2, Wits 3, Presence 2. Engineer 2, Streetwise 2. Stamina 11 / Lifeblood 7. Armor 1. Special: knows every back route out of a fight.
- Rogue Shipmind — Wits 4, Presence 2. Hacking 3. Systems only, no Stamina/Lifeblood. Special: cannot be reasoned with once past 50% Hull damage — only shut down.
10.3 Conversion Notes
Porting material from classic lifepath or UWP-style sci-fi systems:
- Collapse multi-digit stat lines to the 0–4 Attribute scale by taking (original stat − 6), floor 0, ceiling 4.
- Treat any old “Hit Points” total as Stamina + Lifeblood combined, split roughly 2:1.
- A world’s old UWP-style string maps directly onto the Section 9.1 table — population and government columns translate almost digit for digit.
- Old-school career-death results become Scars, full stop. Nothing in this system kills a character before the first session.
11. Supplement: Cosmic Horrors
The things out here were never meant to be fought fairly. Use this section sparingly — a horror that shows up in every session stops being cosmic.
11.1 Running Horrors
- Horrors ignore Armor unless stated otherwise; they don’t harm the way weapons do.
- Never give players a full stat block mid-scene. Describe effects. Reveal numbers only when a fight is unavoidable.
- Most horrors work better as Countdown Clocks (Section 9.2) than as combat encounters — the crew’s real objective is usually escape, containment, or simply surviving long enough to matter.
- A horror’s Fear Rating sets the TN for Resolve Checks made in its presence (Section 4.4) and the Resolve cost of failing that check.
11.2 Fear Rating Reference
| Fear Rating | Resolve Check TN | Resolve Cost on Failure |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 8 | 1 |
| 2 | 10 | 2 |
| 3 | 12 | 3 |
| 4 | 14 | 4 |
| 5 | 16 | 5+ (referee’s discretion) |
11.3 Bestiary
The Long Chorus — Fear Rating 3. A drifting mass of fused, still-living bodies that broadcasts a harmony no two listeners describe the same way. Cannot be fought conventionally; Hacking or Engineer TN 12 severs its broadcast. Anyone who listens for more than one scene must Push a Resolve Check or begin humming along.
Threadless — Fear Rating 2. Something that used to be a person, still moving on muscle memory, no longer connected to anything that could be called a self. Stamina 10 / Lifeblood 8, Armor 0, Melee 2. Special: takes no penalty from Winded — it was never using Stamina to begin with.
A Door That Remembers — Fear Rating 4. Not a creature. An airlock, a hatch, a threshold that has learned to open onto somewhere other than where it should. Cannot be harmed. Void-Sight (Tier 2) identifies it before use; Engineer TN 14 seals it permanently. Anyone who passes through unknowingly does not necessarily come back as themselves.
The Patient Hull — Fear Rating 3. A derelict that isn’t empty — it’s digesting, slowly, and everything aboard it has been for a very long time. Hull 40, Armor 2, no functioning Systems of its own; it slowly repurposes any ship that docks with it (Engineer TN 12 per hour docked, cumulative Bane on failure, to resist).
Vessel (see Madness Table result 10, Section 6.3) — Fear Rating varies. A player character who rolled the worst possible Madness result is not removed from play — they are handed to the referee as raw material. What looks out through their eyes now has its own Fear Rating, its own agenda, and, for a while, the party’s total trust.
Closing Note for Referees: Wormwood Drift is built to run fast and hit hard. Keep the dice light, keep the horrors rare, and let your table’s dread come from not knowing what the next Ghost on the sensors turns out to be.
Wormwood Drift is complete as written — everything needed to build a crew, fly a ship, and lose your mind slowly enough to enjoy it. Godspeed. Watch the sensors.
