Darlarskin the creep forge

Darlarskin is a world in the Undersphere, a break-off cluster of planets below the galactic plane. Like all worlds in the Undersphere it is ruled by the godlings known as the Underminsters and their servants, the Reborn. Darlarskin is a heavy industrial world, buried under a thick blanket of multi-level factories. The atmosphere is a toxic miasma of exhaust. Base line organic life struggles to survive here; only the twisted imaginary life forms known as creeps thrive. Creeps reflect the emotional character of their environment so here they are stunted imp-like creatures  with grotesque biomechanical features. Their instincts drive them to ceaselessly toil without intellect. They are the ones that built the factories  and you can see the limit of their reason in the strange and futile architecture. Most of the work that is done on Darlarskin is pointless and absurd, an endless ouroboros of manufacturing and recycling. Only in the domains of the Reborn nobles do human and Reborn overseers bend the creep thralls into useful labors. Each noble aims to corner a particular market niche, such as infantry weapons or amour.

 Baron Valderash is the most famous sword smith in the Undersphere (though an honest assessment would give the credit to his team of human thralls). He is an ancient vampire, all gaunt with lipless fangs and lidless eyes. His barony is in the upper reaches of Darlarskin, a realm of crooked towers and gothic metal catwalks. Reborn corsairs come here to commission cruel weapons. Valderash and his thralls know the secret of creep smithing, the art of binding creeps into metal. These prison swords weep strange venom and are willful in their owners' hands.

 By Reborn custom a sword can only be given a name after it has taken the life of a worthy opponent. Also by custom duels can only take place with the consent of the local lord. Nobles picking up custom weapons are often wish for a chance to name their weapons. Valderash maintains a stable of aspiring duelists eager to win a noble title by defeating the previous title holder. Which duelists challenges which noble is entirely at the whims of Valderash. The hopeless neonates are thrown in front of valuable customers while he holds the skilled back for nobles he would prefer to see dead. When they aren't training or indulging in the horrible vices of the Reborn, the duelists serve as the Baron's leg breakers.

In the darkness of the lower manufactories is the realm of Baroness Gruvalda the creep smith. She is a luneman. Her human form is overweight and she usually wears a lab coat with a gore and oil stained leather apron. Her bestial tells are her predatory gaze and her massive prehensile tongue. Her beast form is a jowely hellhound. Gruvalda is the foremost creep smith on Darlarskin. She surgically alters the lowly creep thralls  into combat ready forms, often by combining parts from multiple creeps. Her creeps aren't the most deadly, resilient or terrifying but they are cheep. Currently she is trying to challenge her reputation by making a single masterpiece creep. Creatively she is at a dead end and is just stapling more creeps together. She will pay handsomely for better building stock, or even some better ideas.

The ruler of Darlarskin is Underminister Trevfarl. It appears as a verdigrised metal skeleton forty feet tall. Leathery hoses give it veins and viscera. On it's head is a blank rusted mask. It sleeps on a throne of pipes in the heart of a busy factory. When roused two baneful yellow lamps shine out of the mask like eyes and the hoses engorge with steam. Small ruptures bleed steam and slick red oil before knitting back together. Before it attacks it roars like a steam whistle then fixes its gaze on a target, causing their blood to boil. Like all underminister it communicates its wishes through dreams.

Military rations

The human space navy eschews food from the homeworld of Dirt entirely. Until recently Dirt was a patchwork of rival arcology states. In the new multicultural Seeder Navy food can reignite old grudges. Serve Esk-style fermented protein slurry to a group of marines from Esk's ancient nemesis Url and you might have a riot on your hands. The Seeder Navy sources it's rations from its many trading partners; bulk grains from Mother Corp, cheese from Cheese Covered Planet, even human germline clone meats from Mu-Boll meat vats.

The bulk of the Reclaimer Alliance's ground forces are made up by Scollapendrite fighting clans. Scollapendrites are sapient arthropod-like creatures and obligate carnivores. As such their supply chains are entirely dependent on the Church of the Holy Vermin. The church uses its ancient vermin engines to create swarms of bugs which are then killed and made into jerky. Most Scollapendrites prefer live prey, so the clans supplement their rations with aggressive forage. Fighting clan deployment zones become depleted of wildlife, urban scavengers and household pets. One clan, the Maltok or "Cellar Devils" are infamous among their enemies for their grisly resupply practices. They are urban/subterranean specialists and it is said they never pack rations for long term missions. In one storied/officially denied incident a the shell of a high ranking Over Crab officer was found picked clean. The story told in secret by the Neo Floozies is that single commando blew a hole in the carapace then ate the unlucky officer alive from the inside out. This is anatomically impossible when you consider the size of a Scollapendrite stomach relative to an Over Crab. Clearly then it was more than one Scollapendrite. Everyone agrees that is not better.

Clowners are marine arthropod-like sapients. Whispering Worms are sapient endo-symbionts. Together with a human minority they make up the merchant marine firms of the Republic of Sea Serpents. The traditional rations are cans of salted by-catch slurry from the Republic's great fisheries, topped off with a frankly terrify ration of foul kelp grog (Whispering Worm hosts get double). Humans introduced the concept of bread, which became a standardized carb wafer. The sandwich entered into the shared mythology of the Clowners and the Whispering Worms with surprising speed. They now consider half eaten sandwiches as great delicacies. Most claim that the best sandwiches are the ones chewed on by humans, though some violently disagree. This is the one bit of social leverage humans have in merchant marines .

Officially denied by the Intergalactic Candy company, candy pirates operate mostly independently in the void. Their food comes from the carefully tended candy gardens, one in each ship. These tiny patches of the insidious candy ecosystem can digest virtually any biomass and convert it into it into the candy the Candlyling and Candy Mutant crew need to live. The crewman in charger of the garden is known as the granger and they are just below the captain in the chain of command. The granger is honor bound to feed and care for any captives. A steady diet of raw candy will convert into candy mutants over the course of a week.



The Agredeem are echinoderm-like sapients. They are amphibious omnivore scavengers. Their previous polity, the Agredeem Totality feed their space navy with bio-engineered algae that came in flavors like dead fish, mortally wounded shellfish and moldy fruit medley. The new Agredeem Empire has greatly increased production as part of their general war footing, leading to noticeable drop in quality, which in turn leads to moral problems, especially among human auxiliary units.
Unlike the flat hierarchies of the Totality, the Empire has an aristocratic officer class which has been infected by the decadence of the Emperor. They demand a high level of luxury even while the're campaigning. The average imperial officer has 1d4 hundred credits worth of high end provisions such as expensive wine (severed in marine/terrestrial pairs), exotic caviar and high end rot spice. The Empire's over taxed supply lines have become prime privateer targets. There is also a thriving a black market that stops just short of active treason. If you want to bribe an Agredeem guard, bring fresh fish eggs.
The most tempting targets are the supply freighters heading towards the Emperor and his Great Star advisers. They can be found at the heart of their titanic capital ships on the front lines. Each ship has a fully stocked kitchen with a ladder worth tens of thousands of credits. Of course they are protected by the power of the Imperial war machine and they are well within the psychic influence spheres of the Great Stars

setting primer

Setting

Ancient Precursors - The original Bastards were hyper advanced beings who came into the universe when it was created. Their grasp of science was so great they were almost god-like. In their apocalyptic war they shaped the cosmos and set the future of Bastard Galaxy in motion. The modern galaxy lacks the technology of the bastards and must live in their shadow.

A crowded galaxy - Civilization has existed since the beginning of the universe, and has spread throughout it. Truly barren planets are rarities; most have at least simple life or machine ecologies. The galaxy is dotted with cosmopolitan settlements, cities of the cosmos where dozens or even hundreds of different sapients rub shoulders. Even in the remotest worlds you might find indigenous tribes or lost ruins

A multi-polar system - There are dozens of strong polities locked in a delicate détente. Most major states are aligning together against the Agredeem God Emperor and their insidious mind control but old grudges run deep. Rapacious Mega-Corps like Mother Corp and the Intergalactic Candy Company consume all they can in the name of greed while colonial powers like the Neo-Floozies absorb smaller polities. There is a divide between organic and machine life, with some machine nations being extremely mecha-chauvinistic. Living gods like Molsheen the divine tumor lord over their own private theocracies while ancient powers like the Republic of Sea Serpents and the Gas-Bags scheme through the centuries. The nomadic Empire of Friends is pushing into the local region, bringing conflict with it. The pirates of the Under Sphere wish to create their own realm and will plunder others to build it. Only the fear of war keeps the tenuous peace, but even then cold conflicts sometimes boil over.

Humanity Divided - Human beings came into the universe either as servants of the Bastards, or as Bastards themselves. They spread like few other races have, and now humans can be found across the galaxy. In the past the human Empire of Dirt ruled them all but that time has past. The human home world of Dirt has spawned another polity, the Seeder initiative seeks once more to unite humanity. But humanity is no longer interested in being united. Many humans belong to alien polities.  Centuries of isolation have split them into hundreds of sub species. They have adapted to live in extreme and strange environments, like dreams or virtual worlds. Perhaps the most divergent are the Canine-forms, humans who were long ago spliced with dog DNA. Ancient injustice caused them to rebel and to this day there is a grudge between them and the rest of humanity.

Themes

Cosmic - The Bastard Galaxy is full of wonders. There are alien jungles, bustling space ports and crumbling ruins. Space is full of ships, stations and ancient mega structures, each unique and idiosyncratic. Each of the galaxy's millions of worlds offer a different vista. There is always somewhere unexplored and undiscovered, full of mystery and danger.

Psychedelic - The Bastards unleashed the realm of the mind onto the world. Psionic powers, astral realms, living memes, these are just part of the world now. The galaxy has become a place where will and imagination can overwrite reality. Seekers of the psychic world find power, transformation and sometimes madness.

Evolution - The galaxy is an ancient place. It has become strange and gnarled with time. Ecosystems have advanced over millions of years to become intricate and powerful things. The technology of the Bastards has become feral, infusing nature with elements of vanished civilizations, the scars of the past become the fruits of the future. Machine ecologies carry on the work of their vanished masters and new gods are born from the corpses of the old ones. The brutal, elegant logic of evolution carves everything into weird and terrible new forms. 

Odd Jobs promos

These are session promos for the Bastard Galaxy campaign I have been running. 


You're a freelancer doing odd jobs on the planet dirt  when you get an offer that's too good to refuse. It's a simple courier job but the pay scale is out of this world. All you have to do is take a glass of milk from an aristo to his nephew  on the aquatic colony world of Glishar. But can anything really be that easy? Find out in Odd Jobs: Milk run

 Your new client is the Coven of Bad Water and they have unusual taste. They want a bottle of fermented Drongus sauce from the city of Ix. The catch is that Ix was destroyed thousands of years ago. Fortunately, they have lead on the last bottle in existence. Unfortunately, its deep in the Undersphere, in the collection of the mad baroness Tubulla. Your job is to break into her sprawling larder complex in the boreal region of the Mansion Baronies and steal the goods. Along the way, you can help yourself to any of the Baroness's rare consumables. But watch out for the locals and the Baroness's henchmen that Stand between you and a successful Odd Jobs: Fridge Raid.

The planet Lover has always been Dirt's twin. Humanity used to live their long ago, until the wars that scorched them both. Where Dirt regrew twisted and strange, Lover became fierce and verdant. The Dentata world next door was ignored for ages until a new industry popped up: ecotourism. Now you have a gig guiding galactic aristos across the sea of flowers, so that they might witness the majesty of the slug whales. But slug whales are far from the only creatures in the floral sea. Do you have the wiles to survive Odd jobs: Boat Tour?

You find yourselves in the dubious employment of Mother Corp on the compost moon Heap. You have been hired on as Delvers, foolhardy souls who explore the moist and rotting depths  in service to Mother Corp's soil mining operations. Unbeknownst to your vegetative employers, you all have a hidden motive. You're double agents, working for the resistance group the Glade. Your mission is to hijack one of Mother Corp's cyborg mole machines and pilot it to a hidden Glade base deep in the anaerobic sea. But what else lurks among the refuse and the rot? Find out in Odd Jobs: Turn Over.

You find yourself stranded in the buried city of Discardia. The surface is embroiled in a mass revolt and Mother Corp is blockading the moon. Fortunately, the Glade has a secret route off world; the interplanar lens, an ancient artifact that can open dimensional portals. However, the only plane "close" enough to Discardia is the Trail, a vast and confusing dimension that threads its way through astral space. Your hosts tell you that a group of guides will be arriving soon, and that they will be looking for laborers to help with some kind of harvest. Translation issues make the details spotty but your hosts think it was something about…Eels? Find out more in Odd Jobs: Dream Gig.

Deep within the labyrinth of Quidious Halc in the bowels of the planet Arlot, the Spined  Oracle has spawned once more. The great and the good of the Neo Floozy empire are gathering in the depths, preparing for the oracular hunt. The one who slays the beast will see their future etched into it's spines. A frontier town has formed on the outskirts of the labyrinth, where all the guides and guards and camp followers congregate. It is into this managed chaos you arrive, ostensibly to seek employment under the neo floozy worthies. But you already have a secret employer, and a hidden objective. You have been contracted by the Fandorian resistance, and your target is the Neo-Floozy  governor of Fandoria, the Pond Scum city state of Goba. The oracular hunt is dangerous, and accidents happen out in the labyrinth. Your true mission is to make Goba's luck run out. But will your own luck see you out of the labyrinth. Find out in Odd Jobs: Rat Trap.

Software design draft rules

I'm mostly just posting this here so my players can see it. Maybe at some point I'll expand on  it.

Software is made out of  code fragments (also known as code frags). Code frags can be created at a rate of one frag per 10 hours of work. They can also be found in information systems or recovered from broken code. Basic software requires 3 frags per level, and takes an hour to assemble. Special types of frags exist, such as eureka frags and dubious frags. Rules for these will be introduced when the're first found

Basic Programs Types

ICE - Counter intrusion software meant to thwart unauthorized users

ICE Breaker - Software designed to break ICE

Agent - Autonomous software that makes decisions and takes actions without input from the user. Can be combined with other programs like ice breakers and payloads

Payload - Software used to effect undefended systems. The two most common are Control Spikes, which grant control of the target system, and Data Siphons, which hijacked data. Other more exotic versions exist.

Red Queen decay

Digital Warfare is in a state of constant evolution. Strategies and counter strategies come and go. Frequently used software runs the risk of becoming obsolete. Each time a piece of soft ware is used, roll its Red Queen die. On a 1, that soft ware is now obsolete and users suffer disadvantage on all checks. Most programs have a Red Queen die of d6.

space pirates

Space is large and remote, with long stretches of isolated nothing. These distant waypoints and astral lacuna form perfect ambush points for the many pirates that stalk the galaxy. A spaceship is a tempting prize in and of itself; as rip drives and other ftl devices are expensive to make. Any cargo that happens to seized is a bonus. Rarely, pirates will raid independent planets and freeholds, but the logistics of transporting their booty out of gravity wells is beyond most pirates. In addition, most freeholds are themselves populated largely by pirates, making them less than soft targets.

Pirates form a huge section of the Galactic underclass; those desperate losers looking for an easy score to get rich quick. Independent pirates make up the bottom of the barrel in pirate society. They use scrap ships and make shift weapons, and can present a real danger to the unwary, but are no real threat to hardened targets. Above the independents are the privateers, state sanctioned pirates. Many polities empower their more heavily armed citizens to take action against the state's enemies. Currently with the rise of the Agredeem empire, the Seeders and other allied powers are licensing many more privateers to disrupt the God Emperor's trade routes. Also, many polities employ privateers as pirate hunters. There is a notable convergence in attitude, culture and personnel between pirates and pirate hunters.

Aside from privateers, there are some pirate polities, that is, states that use their armed forces to commit piracy. The Republic of Sea Serpents is notorious for this practice. The Joker merchant marine corps spends as much time waiting for victims as they do protecting Sea Serpent shipping interests. According to the Sea Serpents, the Jokers are private contractors and they can not be held liable for their actions on their own time. Most states find believing this more convenient than contesting it.

While not strictly speaking a polity in its own right, the leading edge of the migration of the Empire of Friends is a refuge for all the outcasts and criminals of the empire. While the so called "pirate corona" is  a poorly policed zone, it is not ungoverned. The corona has its own twisted version of the Creed of Friendship, and is ruled by several strong factions of ner-do-wells, including the Bad Dude Alliance and the Coven Collective. As the empire, and thus the corona migrate, independent pirate bands are absorbed by these factions. They are organized enough to pull off daring planetary raids. There is a constant struggle between the main stream empire and the pirate corona, but there are also back channels that let the two sides coordinate against outsiders.

The Machine lifeforms of the Xietentoeten Economic Zone are strongly mecha-chauvinist, and frequently do not respect the property rights of organic life. Armed parties of XEZ will target and rob non machine life just because they can get away with it.

Two groups of sapients follow the Candymen. The Intergalactic Candy Company is the more respectable, business side of the candy. The Candy Cults are the more wild and primal side. While the Candy Company serves the Candy for material gain, the Candy Cults serve through faith and addiction. Made up of Candylings, Candy Mutants and assorted candy addicts, they rove the stars, looking for tribute for their candy masters. They have a reputation for mercy. Instead of spacing captives, they keep them alive. They accept ransoms to rescue high profile captives, and will release others at the nearest freehold, but not before exposing them to candy narcotics. Many take to piracy themselves to feed their new addictions.

But of all the pirate polities the most feared are the Reborn of the Undersphere. Hailing from a cluster of planets below the Galactic plane, Reborn corsairs raid much of the Galaxy. They don't just seek ships and goods, but personnel as well. Reborn are created through a mixture of mental conditioning and a certain retro virus. The process of creating a Reborn is fraught with peril. Roughly one in fifty successfully survive the process; the rest are turned into non-sapient creeps or killed outright. Even other pirates fear the Reborn. 

Dream piracy is the act of psychically entering another's dream with ill intent. It is most often practiced by the Pirate Corona and the reborn corsairs, as well as Father Corp. The first two factions use this technique to find hidden intel about potential targets, as well as to subvert and suborn the minds of defenders. Father Corp steals entire dreams wholesale, leaving the victim dazed and listless until they can have a proper dream.

pre gen characters for odd jobs

Warriors

A Tale of Swords is a robotic sword fighter. They are a black rainbow destroyer, a linage of machine life that evolved from ancient killbots. They look like a humanoid figure in heavy black armor adorned with an oil slick sheen. They are traveling the galaxy seeking the beauty in violence.

Snar Leeson is a human monster hunter from the death world Osgren. Osgrenite culture centers around hunting and cooking. Snar is searching for a probably mythical noodle shop called the cosmic noodle.

Merle Row is a dog person known as a Canineform. They are in the Cult of Master Vigilant, which worships an abstract god of duty and loyalty. They were expelled from their after falling asleep on watch, and now they wander the galaxy seeking atonement.

Vrax Belter is a former human mutated into a candyling from their candy addiction. They spent some time with a crew of candy pirates before striking off on their own.

Scientists

Blossom is a Jezoflorid ecologist. Jezoflorids are serpentine plant people who are sold by the monolithic Mothercorp. Blossom is a member of the Glade, an anarchist faction that opposes Mothercorp. They are exploring the galaxy looking for bio weapons to use in their guerrilla war.

HSIYA is a sapient computer virus and hacker in a humanoid robotic frame. Their people are called the counter Gnomics. They are searching for a  nice big undefended network they can start their own colony/multi-level marketing scheme in.

XHTL is a Prime Strain crystal smith. They used to work for Father Corp, crafting advanced psionic devices. They left due to poor working conditions and are now looking for adventure.

Taril Wranz is a human academic from the Academy of Gnomic Arts. They are fusing with an ancient Gnomic prosthetic that replaced their arm. They are wandering the galaxy looking for inspiration for their thesis.

Pyskers

Garval is a Power Fetus, a psychically strong but physically underdeveloped race. They appear as a fetus inside an opaque exoskeleton made of psychic force. They were forced out of their home, the empire of friends for perversion, and now they are seeking a new community to join.

Flara Orzo is  a Pertanguan telekinetic. The Pertanguan's are cybernetic grub creatures who are obsessed with  Speed. Flara was part of a race crew until all their friends died in a crash, of which Flara was the sole survivor. They are seeking funds to buy a new racer to compete in the galactic grand prix .

Fango Kha is a reptile/human hybrid with biokinetic powers from the theocracy known as ThePeople of The Whorl. They are on a holy pilgrimage to see every kaiju in the Galaxy. 

Green Grin is a Maskform, a branch of humanity that has adapted to live in dreams. They have an innate power to form bonds with dream creatures. They were exiled after their beloved pet went on a destructive rampage.

Jacks

Glurp is a Flesh 7monk. The Flesh 7 are a race of cyborgs with electronic brains and organic bodies. Glorp practices an obscure martial art known as Night Beast Style. Flesh 7 bodies are mutable; Glurp currently has humanoid body with a large predatory muzzle. They are wandering the galaxy looking for chances to prove the strength of their style.

Sir Kraver of Dung hill is a Fandoran trash knight. The Fandorans are a rat-like race that have recently been annexed into the neo-floozy empire. In the conquest Sir Kraver lost their ancestral home. They are questing for allies and material for their rebellion against the nep-floozies.

Low Tide is an Agrdeem, a race of amphibious star fish. They were an operative of Orphan Guild, a mass survaliance agency tasked with defending the Agrdeem Totality from the rise of the Great Stars. They failed, and now low tide is wandering the galaxy seeking ways to undermine the Agrdeem Empire.

Hizam, who is no one but Orn, is a fungal sapient from the Reclaimer Alliance. They are an "exorcist" (Literally, "creep eater" in the original Ornish) They were cast out for up staging their master.