The characteristic fate of disfavored people in the spider droid empire is neurointerment. The spider droids are obsessed with arcane physics research best served by organic and positronic brains. Sapients are placed into a giant deep-space mainframe that utilizes their brains for compute, burning through them rapidly. Oceans of corpses are disgorged from the mainframe's vents and thousands of transport ships wade through this ocean to deliver their sapient cargo.
Most newly-conquered systems are stripped of their populations and forgotten by the spider droids, though a few have their suns encased in Dyson spheres. Most additions to the mainframe come from newly-acquired worlds, though a randomly-selected proportion of conquered populations are spared neurointerment, and are dumped on spider droid worlds and stations.
You are one such individual. You live in a spider droid ecumenopolis. This world's sun is being encased in a Dyson sphere, and while the sky has visibly dimmed, the world won’t be totally deprived of sunshine until your great grandchildren are dead.
The spider droid empire has only situational use for its subjects, and you have joined the ecumenopolis' vast criminal underworld, seeking to stockpile enough energy credits to escape the ecumenopolis' chaos, and perhaps export it elsewhere.
Index
Species
Background
Operations
Combat
State Forces
Personal Weapons of the Criminal Element
Military Weapons
Wearables
Enhancements to Static Operations
Expeditionary Activities
Warship Weapons
Enemy Gangster Table
Treasure Table
Victory
Notes
Spider droid records enumerate the partial neurointerment of 224 species.
You start with 2d4+1 Gangsters. rng224 your species and the species of each of your gangsters:
1. Aborted alien dragon fetus in ambulatory life-preservation pod
2. Actual-octopus-illithid
3. Alligator-hyena man
4. Alpha-frilled avian lizardman
5. Aluminum green-sac-mouthed armored green-wing-headed man
6. Ambulatory companionship-seeking cloth-wearing terminal droid
7. Ambulatory metal-and-sinew-faced elevated xenomorph
8. Amoebic goo-over-skeleton man
9. Ancient cybernetic-animated corpse
10. Ancient plague-techpriest
11. Armored four-armed serpent man
12. Armored turtle man
13. Armored-frill askance-looking roadrunner man
14. Astral-hued anteater man
15. Ball-of-flesh man suspended in worksuit filled with blue ichor
16. Barren sensor-headed servo-droid
17. Big-nosed, placid, tendril-eyed, batwinged slugman
18. Bio-frilled sea scientist man
19. Bioengineered chemical-Bane
20. Bioluminescent balls in dead leaf-like superstructure
21. Bioluminescent jellyfish-myconid
22. Bioluminescent sundew carnivore
23. Bipedal mushroom man
24. Black and crimson fungal tendrils parasitizing another creature (roll rng224 for which)
25. Blade-winged faceless monolith-droid
26. Bleary-eyed goateed muskrat man
27. Blind hydra
28. Blue tentacles suspended in eight-armed armor
29. Blue-and-yellow-frilled four-eyed raptor
30. Bulb-sealed parrot man
31. Bunch of one-eyed worms inhabiting and animating a mossy rock structure
32. Bundled slime man in preservation suit
33. Butterfly-wing-frilled hairless cat
34. Cactus dragon
35. Catlike four-eared cyclops with neck feelers
36. Cellulose elf
37. Ceramo-skeletal machine man in bundled wire harness
38. Chittering blue orange-eyed coral-sensored spine-whiskered lobsterman
39. Cloaked sacral droid of mysterious origins
40. Confused-looking toad-Hutt man
41. Corporate-patterned servo-droid
42. Corpsefeasting mushroom insect
43. Crab-arm-mouthed spined-lobster-head man
44. Crown-of-dark-crystal ceramic man
45. Crystal dragon
46. Crystal-spiked rockform long-bundle-tongue cicada nymph
47. Crystal-spined behir
48. Crystalline mouth-beak-masked owl man
49. Cyclopean two-legged ram
50. Dark and glowing psychic xenomorph with six legs and two arms
51. Dead leaf and bark lizard
52. Death-eyed black four-legged two-armed crypt-beast
53. Deathspore ghostguts whitespider
54. Delightful four-eye orificeless tattooed starfish man
55. Desiccated space vampire in preservation suit
56. Devils-causeway-crystalform magmatic-Venus-flytrap man
57. Diamond core with ethereal strands animating limb-lattices of crystal
58. Diminutive blue floating four-armed Frieza
59. Diminutive feather-eared snootbeast
60. Diminutive gray-suspended lordling in vast helmet
61. Disease-chitin many non-bilaterally-symmetric eyed lupine man
62. Dreadlock-cabled predator droid
63. Droopy lipstick-hued tentacle-faced man
64. Droopyfeatured flesh-stalk man
65. Effervescent glowing humanoid droid
66. Effervescent peacock man
67. Eight-armed flesh golem with green viewing pod and something inside
68. Embryonic megaworm preserved in servo-mobilized ichor chamber
69. Eminently-killable lizardmouthed earwig man
70. Ephemeral winged vast-eared mammal-man
71. Eruption of crystal with floating head and hands
72. Faceless dog-eared sentry droid
73. Fanged lamprey-eyed toad man
74. Fat thin-feathered owl man
75. Feather-eared skeletal biting beast
76. Feather-waisted bugeyed mandibled blue horseheaded man
77. Featureless death-worshipping elephant priest
78. Flat-headed muck droid
79. Floating fern-octopus lit by glowing eggs
80. Floating orb in humanoid chassis
81. Floating puffball sporesnail
82. Floating shell with hanging tendrils and faceplate
83. Floating, square, rune-coated, mysterious container for a positronic brain
84. Flytrap Hutt
85. Four noodle-armed mouthless purple crabman
86. Four-armed face-shrouded psionic death man
87. Four-eyed droopy-fingered lizardman
88. Four-eyed fanged hardheaded lizardman
89. Four-eyed hairy honeydew slice-headed man
90. Four-eyed hardcase orangutan man
91. Four-eyed horned owl man
92. Four-legged two-armed elevated slime puff man
93. Four-wood-winged armored devouring insect man
94. Freakish three-fingered blind praying-mantis plant
95. Fusion man
96. Generic mass-produced servo droid, origin of positronization unknown
97. Ghoulish bald rodent man
98. Giant fluffy purple moth
99. Glowing bulb humanoid
100. Glowing information cubes caught in rough mineral-laced flesh structure
101. Glowing mushroom lord with built-in bioluminescent silks
102. Glowing mushroom man with tendrils
103. Glowing runic boulders captured in feathered-root superstructure
104. Glowing-core black mushroom with four arms
105. Gravitic rock-formation with molten core and hands
106. Gray-eminent felinid
107. Halo-headed death-rock mummy
108. Horned and frilled reptile man
109. Huge-beaked goblin man
110. Hulking octopus-armed murder droid
111. Humanoid slugman in stabilization suit
112. Illustrious yet lowbrow-looking many-winged dragon man
113. Innocent-looking weasel man
114. Lamprey the Hutt
115. Leafless tree-man whose limbs terminate in eyes
116. Leathery toothless hammerhead man
117. Lifesuit-encased pollution-snail
118. Lilly-backed bone panther
119. Lithic bullspider
120. Little gecko man
121. Longhaired owl man
122. Lumpy slime bull-dwarf
123. Magma dwarf
124. Majestic but deviant fin-winged bejeweled caterpillar man
125. Majestic multicolor-maned mycelium man
126. Majestic six-eyed purple man with no mouth and integral helmet
127. Majestic tentacled four-armed many-eyed bug priest
128. Malign bald zipper-mouthed tentacle face man
129. Malign giant beetle man
130. Malign glowing-eyed bark man
131. Malign green-capped four-eyed moss man
132. Malign head-plated squid-mouth man
133. Malign pseudodonkey man
134. Malign purple four-armed carrion birdman
135. Malign, muscular, hook-eared cat man
136. Malign-eyed wasp droid
137. Man comprised of pangolin-scales
138. Manifold alien mushroom with many bulbous sensory organs and tentacles
139. Many-eyed horned iguana man
140. Many-limbed snail man
141. Many-tentacle faced rubberized man
142. Many-tongued pitcher plant praying mantis
143. Many-vented four-armed hydrothermal beast
144. Masked, diseased dumpworld delver gorilla
145. Micro-UAV aided four-armed pillar droid
146. Monocular birdman
147. Multicolored shelled snail-tortoise
148. Mysterious humanoid encased in dark, baroque frame-suit
149. Mysterious rock-and-crystal man with attached-and-detached shoulder halo
150. Mysterious veiled humanoid
151. Neotenous fox man
152. Nerdy chameleon man
153. Nine noodly-nosed mucosoid sand flea man
154. Nine-spined mouthless resin villain
155. Noodly-appendaged long-headed slug droid
156. Noseless hairless blue-scaled blue-eyed man
157. Nosferatu bat
158. Old-and-aggrieved-looking skinless longhead man
159. One-eyed black crab-oyster droid
160. Parrot lizard
161. Peacock-feather-faced creature from the Black Lagoon
162. Pile of semi-molten fungal flesh with pseudopods
163. Pincer-mouthed chitin man
164. Pitted short-snout death dolphin
165. Poison hatchery-eyed platypus-man
166. Pretentious plague custodian
167. Pretentious-coded slime-circulating servo-droid
168. Radial-eye-and-feather blood-weeping birdman
169. Rascally-looking dual proboscis man
170. Reedborne mantle mushroom man
171. Rippling, furred, and tendril-feathered red mantle man
172. Rock-and-crystal turkey
173. Runic clothwrapped boulderform humanoid
174. Sagacious sensor-whiskered giant-frill man
175. Sea dragon
176. Seahorse-xenomorph
177. Seaweed goblin
178. Serpent-parasitized omni-squid man
179. Shell-faced red-tip tendrilled nautilus-man
180. Shell-topped entity made of fungal cables with a few branching off like limbs
181. Short, jade-green bat-eared bearded man
182. Six-eyed tapir man
183. Six-eyed wombat man
184. Six-featherheaded malevolent emu man
185. Six-frilled starheaded chitin man
186. Six-limbed diamond beast enmeshed in rock-flesh
187. Skeletal eight-eyed peacock man
188. Sleepy leaf-armored sundew-turtle
189. Slime pharaoh
190. Slug-bearing barkman
191. Solar-feathered caterpillar-droid
192. Space warthog man
193. Spider droid
194. Spined hyena-man
195. Superstructure of fungal reeds with a skull as a facemask
196. Synthetic-looking carbon-eyestalked ribbon-limb horse
197. Tall fungal orchid with eyes inside blossom
198. Tall-headed beakless owl man
199. Tall-headed blue smiley man
200. Tall-headed melted-candle Sith-lordesque humanoid
201. Tendril-mustachioed four-eyestalked slugman
202. Tendrilled flesh-heart enmeshed in open-topped humanoid mega-armor
203. Tentacle-haired humanoid brain man
204. Tentacled crystal-ball droid
205. Thick-horned sloth man
206. Thin-beaked toucan man
207. Three-varietal mushroom man, orb sprouting from casing sprouting from bouquet
208. Tiny-eyed-and-armed eight-legged larva man
209. Tiny-tendrilled shrimp man
210. Toothless noseless arrowheaded shark man
211. Tuskless flesh-ribboned slug-walrus
212. Verdant salad man
213. Warped bark-globe-skull man
214. Wending bark stag
215. White-plated purple-eyed termite man
216. Wide zippermouthed six-eyed drool-freak
217. Windswept armored-forehead birdman
218. Wingless frilled dragon-droid
219. Wingless humanoid mosquito-droid
220. Wingless mosquito-woman
221. Withered flesh-toque grinch
222. Yellow feathered-serpent-headed spinetailed swan-man
223. Yellow-glowing plantoid droid
224. Zippermouthed two-by-two head-and-chin frill man
Whenever you generate a new Gangster, you can use the species table.
Background
Before the Ecumenopolis (d12):
1. You were a jetsuit auxiliary for the spider droids. You deserted during the invasion of a solar system and clung to an ECM scrambler. Your armor protected you from the neutron bath bombardment and the biophage foam inundation of the world, but the invasion was cancelled when the world turned out to be filled with artillery from surface to core. The spider droids assassinated the system’s matrioshka brain using a relativistic kill vehicle and then diced the planets with a gridfire attack. You survived on a chunk of planet and then hijacked the first scrap hauler that arrived once the spider droids had left.
Start with the panoply of a Jetsuit Auxiliary (see State Forces) and one of their d12 weapons (plus coilgun).
2. You were a gardener in a verdant hydroponic station swallowed by a spider droid mobile dockyard. Everything you had grown was rendered into nutriment slurry to be fed to the neurointered, but you were allocated for a population transfer rather than joining your plants and companions in the mainframe.
+1 Million Energy Credits per round for growing uberentheogens
3. You were subjected to brutal slavery in a vast, decadent star empire. When the spider droids came, nearly every member of the ruling species was neurointered, and most of the slaves, but you were away breaking down sewage ducts on an outlying scrap world and missed the cull.
+2MEC when stripping superconductive materials
4. You were born in the spider droids’ administrative capitol. You remember freezing winds howling past monumental, empty-seeming, featureless buildings surrounded by colorful embassies, eroded monuments, conduit tracks, and strange, glowing, utterly-isolated structures.
25% chance of evading State Forces prior to an encounter with them
5. You were a delicate entertainer in a highly cultured arcology. When it was stripped for neurointerment you were saved by the patronage of the cyborg mercenary general leading the invasion for the spider droids, and ended up marooned here when he grew tired of you.
Start with 4d4 Gangsters
6. You lived on a gorgeous resort-ringworld located in null-space accessed through a deep space wormhole, where you were an indentured worker in the bespoke bio-augmentation industry. The spider droids located the ringworld and hit it with several relativistic kill vehicles before dragging the chunks back through the wormhole. You own a tachyon scanner, previously used for peeping-tom purposes, and this helped you avoid the neurointerment cull.
Start with a Tachyon Scanner
7. You spent most of your adult life on an utterly irradiated smelter-world where all native life had died, ruled by an uncaring administrator hired from an even more ruthless empire by the spider droids. You are no longer capable of reproduction by any means, not even cloning or neuroreplication.
Gain +1MEC per round due to your efficiency
8. You were taken from a relic-world of an ancient empire that was filled with baroque technology, which the spider droids haven’t even begun to unlock. You can still envision the mangled corpses in their opulent finery, churned by an apocalyptic orbital bombardment and battleroid invasion.
+2 Initiative to the first round of combat when boarding voidships due to an interface device you managed to smuggle off the planet.
9. Born on a remote battlestation, you served in a foreign Solar Corps before deserting, finding your way into the spider droid empire before they even conquered your people.
Make coilgun attacks at d20
10. You were born on a barren penal colony that you escaped through bribery, later working on a Dyson sphere construction habitat very near a sun. It had one of the best shopping malls in existence, which haunts your dreams to this day.
Set up new Static Operations for only 3MEC
11. You were a slave bought by a neurointerment merchant, but you managed to work your way onto the creature’s crew before jumping ship on the ecumenopolis.
Chop voidcraft for an additional 1MEC
12. You’re from an isolated outpost of religious fanatics, degenerate artists, and outlawed researchers; when the spider droids came, they quarantined your colony and transferred the whole population to the ecumenopolis rather than use your brains in the mainframe.
Gain +1MEC per round from Outlawed Knowledge Displays
Operations
Choose a Static Operation for your crew to run.
MEC = million energy credits.
Antimatter Entrapment Lab
3MEC per round
1/10 chance of Mishap per round: Entrapment failure event, Static Operation destroyed, everyone present killed, arcology collapses.
Captive Blacksite
Can keep captives from your Expeditionary Activities (see table below) here with no chance of detection; no intrinsic income, but also no chance of Mishap.
Without a Captive Blacksite, captives have a 1/12 chance of bringing a relevant Raid type every round, lose Static Operation on defeat.
Customs Evasion Bay
2MEC per round
Roll both Mishap possibilities in order:
1/6 Mishap: Aggrieved, bribed, or narcotized guidance AI crashes starship into bay, d12 attack on all present
1/8 Mishap: Tariff cruiser arrives on smuggler’s tail, site suffers Warship Ground Attack followed by State Forces (see respective tables below), lose Static Operation on defeat.
Guerrilla Battleroid Workshop
2MEC per round, 3MEC if you defeated a raid last round.
Roll both in order:
1/8 Mishap: Battleroids awaken, those present must fight 2d4 d12-strength enemies or lose Static Operation
1/20 Mishap: Revolutionary expropriation, fight 2d6 d6 enemies from the Millenarian Communal Reaction, lose Static Operation on defeat.
Hacking DEP Battery
d4MEC per round
Roll both in order:
1/6 Mishap: Retributive feedback fries systems/guides; d4 Gang Members killed, must re-establish Static Operation for 1MEC.
1/10 Mishap: Software company antimatter-bombs your arcology, killing everyone and destroying your Static Operation.
Illegal Power Drawing Station
Choose how much power to draw per round:
1MEC: 1/12 chance of Mishap
2MEC: 1/8 Mishap
3MEC: 1/4 Mishap
Mishap: Overload explosion, d12-strength attack on all present, can't draw next turn.
Outlawed Knowledge Display
1MEC per round.
Roll both in order:
1/10 Mishap: Locals attack display: d8 d4-strength assailants with coilguns (see weapons table below), lose Static Operation on defeat.
1/12 Mishap: Viewer snitches on display, Raid by State Forces, lose Static Operation on defeat.
Physical Gambling
50/50 chance: 1MEC or 2MEC per game round.
1/4 Mishap: Battle breaks out over game, those present must fight d8 gamblers with coilguns or lose d6MEC (going into debt if losses exceed reserves).
Replicant Synth Lab
1MEC per round.
1/12 Mishap: Synths awaken, 50/50 chance of fighting d4 d12-strength enemies (lose Static Operation on defeat) or gaining d4-1 new gang members.
Superweapon Precursors Lab
2MEC per round
Roll both in order:
1/10 Mishap: Mass exposure fatality event in Biophage Culturing Section, all Gang Members without Biophage Sheath killed, 1/4 chance of this happening to all your Static Operations per round for d4 rounds. 1/12 chance of Neutron Permeation of arcology by spider droids, killing everyone present in the Static Operation (and the arcology).
1/10 Mishap: Partial reaction, d20 attack on everyone present.
Unregulated AI Spawning Pool
2MEC per round.
1/8 Mishap: AI bypasses entrapment system. Drone swarm arrives, uploads AI, and launches Warship Ground Attack on Static Operation before departing.
Unsafeguarded Nanite Breeding Program
3MEC per round
Roll both in order:
1/10 Mishap: One of your gang members snitches on the program, site suffers Warship Ground Attack followed by Raid by State Forces (lose Static Operation on defeat).
1/12 Mishap: Replicator entrapment failure event. If you have an antimatter bomb on hand you can detonate it, destroying the Static Operation and killing everyone present, otherwise your other operations (if you have 2+) each have a 75% chance of being consumed and destroyed before orbital masers contain the outbreak.
Voidcraft Chop Shop
Allows you to profit for breaking down a ship hijacked during Expeditionary Activities. Profit for breakdown is listed in the hijacking entry of Expeditionary Activities.
1/12 Mishap, 1/8 if you sold a ship's parts last round: Raid by customs officials (State Forces) or manufacturer mercenaries (50/50), lose Static Operation on defeat.
Wireheading Bay
1MEC per batch of clients per round; 1/4 chance of new batch of clients per round.
1/6 Mishap: Power spike fries all clients
Xenomorph Engineering Bunker
2MEC per round
1/10 Mishap: Entrapment failure event: Fight d4 d20 enemies, lose Static Operation on defeat.
A new Static Operation can be established for 4MEC total, 1MEC for a Masquerade Suite (so you can hide from the spider droids), and 3MEC for materials. A Static Operation's type can be changed for 1MEC.
It costs 1MEC to hire 2d4 d8-strength gang members. Static Operations require keeping at least 4 Gang Members present to make their per-round profit.
If you are killed, you can take over as one of your gang members, who becomes the new kingpin.
Combat
In combat, sides roll d20(+highest bonus) Initiative, and then each character on the winning side fires at an enemy in turn. Personal weapons are so powerful that Initiative is of the highest importance.
Normal Gangsters with coilguns fire at d8. Most enemies have d8 strength. When you fire, both characters roll and compare strengths. If the firer beats the target, the target is killed. Only the side that has initiative can kill members of the other side. After all members of one side have fired, the other side fires.
Powerful weapons have a chance of collapsing the arcology, killing everyone present who doesn't have Ion/Fusion thrusters, launching a d20/d12 attack on those who do.
A collapse occurring at one of your Static Operations destroys it.
State Forces
d10
1. Nanite-Repaired Assassination Warframe: +4 Initiative, 2d20 strength, only 25% chance of being wrecked on a successful hit.
2. Nanite Devourer Artillery Bombardment: Single set of 2x d20 attacks on everyone present, ignoring armor.
3. Nanite Assassination Swarm: +4 Initiative, d20 strength, 50% EMP resistance
4. Neutronium Terminator: d12, only 10% chance of being killed by a successful attack, if you flee it will pursue one of your men on a fusion jetbike.
5. Bioroids: Genetically-engineered killing machines dropped by a voidcraft. Diamond claws, spit clouds of universal solvent, can permanently deafen you with their shriek: +3 Initiative, 2d4 d12 enemies
6. Battleroids: Slain auxiliaries cobbled together and cybernecrotized into supersoldiers. +3 Initiative, d4 d20 enemies
7. Zero-Point Pursuit Craft: +6 Initiative, can run down fusion jetbikes. d20, 50% chance of damage negation.
8. Voidcraft Ground-Attack: A vessel or drone swarm fires on your position, most often from space.
d6:
1. Biophage Cloud: Flesh-eating virus kills all individuals without Armor, 25% chance of killing all individuals without Armor next Static Operations round
2. Liquid Thermite Aerosol: d20 attack on all individuals without Armor, d6 attack on individuals with Armor
3. Fusion DEP Matrix: d20 attack on all individuals, ignoring Armor
4. Bomblet Cloud: 2x d8 attacks on individuals without Armor, d12 attack on individuals with Armor
5. Neutron Permeator: Kills all individuals without Armor, d4 against individuals with Armor
6. Maser: d12 against everyone present, ignoring Armor
9. Jetsuit Auxiliaries: These warriors are rare because they’re normally deployed as part of planetary invasions abroad, but if there are personnel carriers visiting the ecumenopolis's stardocks, then auxiliaries may be called down for raids. They can be of any species.
2d4 Jetsuit Auxiliaries fly in and attack.
They have (from the equipment sections below) Armor, Defense Suite, Fusion Afterburner, Cold Fusion Reactor, total +4 Initiative. They can pursue your men if they flee on jetbikes.
When a Jetsuit Auxiliary attacks, roll on this table for the weapon used (d12) and reference the Weapons Tables:
1 Antimatter Annihilator
2 Fusion Beam
3 Plasmacloud DEP
4 Micromissile Swarm
5 Zero-Point Vacuum Bomb
6 Armored AI Missile
7 Ion Arc
8 Neutronium KEP
9 EMP Munition
10 Poison Dart Drone Swarm
11 Drone Bomblet Swarm
12 Magnetized Monopoint Flechette Canister
10. Clerical Error: The spider droids attack the wrong underworld site, killing hundreds and granting you +1MEC next round from reduced competition.
Personal Weapons of the Criminal Element
While there extraordinarily advanced technology exists, it is not evenly distributed throughout the galaxy, especially in the underworld.
Coilgun: “Coils”, also known as “splashers” because unarmored targets tend to be partially liquefied and spread across the environment. Rounds set the air on fire in transit. This is a personal weapon that every gangster is assumed to have; coils have been in wide use for many hundreds of years, though modern professional infantry use far more advanced weapons during invasions (nuclear darts, UV DEPs etc). d8 attack on an enemy.
Antimatter Annihilator (“Double A”): Basically emits a gigantic cone-shaped explosion that can fully wipe out the other side and everything in the targeting field, though this severely risks inflicting a building collapse. Just about everything within its effective zone will be reduced to a molten state; this zone is not bounded by barriers, all barriers will be annihilated or liquidated. d20 attack on all enemies, 1/8 Collapse. 1MEC
Fusion Beam: Emits a beam capable of cutting almost anything it hits; can be whipped across an enemy formation, bisecting everyone in an instant (can eliminate all opponents in a particular engagement). d8 attack on d8 enemies (rolling for each). 1/20 Collapse. 1MEC
Plasmacloud DEP: Fires in lightning or cloud configuration, the former negating enemy armor, the latter attacking multiple opponents with chance of collapse (originally intended as an anti-gray goo weapon). Ignore-armor d12 attack on 1 enemy or d8 attack on d4 enemies with 1/12 Collapse. 1MEC
Micromissile Swarm: Designed to overwhelm personal point-defense systems; can also target many individuals and handily blow them limb-from-limb. Attacks all enemies. d20 attack on enemies without CIWS. Requires Energy Skeleton. d12 attack on enemies with CIWS, d8 attack on enemies with ECM. 1MEC reload.
Zero-Point Vacuum Bomb: For when an arcology collapse is desired, when raiding other gangs. Must defeat all enemies before safe employment. Grants you 2MEC per use from reduced competition. 1MEC cost per
Armored AI Missile: Mounts a positronic sapient AI bred for kamikaze attacks. Extremely adept at faking out both sapient and AI-defense systems, shielded against many forms of ECM, capable of receiving a degree of counter-fire before impact. 2d20 attack on 2d4 enemies, ignoring the armor of one target. 95% kill (19/20) vs zero point pursuit craft, 50% kill vs voidcraft. 2MEC per
Ion Arc: Dispatches electronics and ion pulse shields. d8 attack on single enemy or d20 attack vs drone swarm or AI missile. Halves effectiveness of an enemy’s Armor after unsuccessful attack.
Military Weapons
Neutronium KEP: Useful against big targets like voidcraft and zero point pursuit craft. d20 attack against individual foe ignoring armor, though it's better used against voidcraft etc. 1MEC reload
Anti-zero point pursuit craft: 75% kill
Anti-voidcraft: 25% kill
EMP Munition: Essentially a softener vs enemy ECM, d20 vs drones, nanites and jetsuit auxiliaries. Can be detonated to knock out incoming micromissile swarm, 75% chance of defeating incoming armored AI missile. 1MEC per.
Magnetized Monopoint Flechette Canister: Anti-power armor infantry and drone swarms, d20 vs d4 infantry prioritizing (and bypassing) Armor, 75% chance of bringing down zero-point pursuit craft, 25% chance of bringing down a voidcraft. 2MEC per.
Lingering Munition Halo: These don’t fly at you when they see you, they fire an armor-piercing discarding-sabot shaped charge. +4 Initiative d20 attack on unarmored enemies, d12. 2MEC reload
Drone Swarms
All drone swarm systems cost 3MEC and have a reload cost if destroyed.
Poison Dart Drone Swarm: Autokills unarmored individuals, no effect on Armored. 1MEC reload
Drone Bomblet Swarm: d20 attack on unarmored individuals, d12 attack on Armored. 2MEC reload, always required
AWACS Drone Swarm: Helps other swarms defeat CIWS etc, +2 to their attacks. 1MEC reload.
Ablative Drone Swarm: Appears to continually unfold before target, absorbing incoming attacks. d8 must be defeated at a time before a hit can be delivered to the controller. 1MEC reload
White Blood Drone Swarm: Attacks other swarms and jetsuit auxiliary squads, d20 against the former and d12 against members of the latter. 1MEC reload.
Wearables
Energy Skeleton: Brain-interfaced frame required for all additions unless otherwise noted. Gangsters who get Energy Skeletons also automatically purchase ion jetbikes for themselves, allowing for flying escapes. 1MEC
Armor: Neutronium lamellar with diamond lattice, plasteel sheath and ion pulse reactive surface; this last part is what makes it effective against coilgun impacts. 50% chance of negating incoming attacks. After defeating an attack, Armor has a 50% chance of being Compromised, ineffective for the duration of the game round. 3MEC
Ablative Nanometal: Expend before Armor test for extra 50/50 roll to negate a successful attack. 2MEC reload
Active Camouflage: Physical and ECM functions, requires Armor. +1 Initiative. 2MEC
Cold Fusion Reactor: +1 Initiative when combined with Armor. 3MEC
Defense Suite: Hardkill/Softkill CIWS/ECM. Provides a degree of anti-missile protection for those nearby; 50% chance of negating incoming micromissile swarm, drone swarm attack, or bomblet attack, 20% chance of negating AI missile. 2MEC
Digital Catheter: For brute-force systemic corruption, aids in raids, +1 Initiative on first round of combat. 10% chance of finding 1MEC in paydirt data when using. 2MEC
Energy Transfer Medium: Sucks power, bring on raids for a 25% chance of a bonus MEC with a 25% chance of accidentally detonating, killing holder and losing bonus. 1MEC.
Fusion Afterburner: +d4 during Flight Escapes, including during Arcology collapses. 2MEC.
Ion Maneuvering Jets: +1 Initiative, allows possible Collapse escape. 1MEC
Nanite Alkahest: Aids in voidcraft hijacking. +3 Initiative on first round of combat. 1MEC reload.
Nanite Damage Control System: Laugh as your suit heals before the enemy’s eyes (slowly). 4MEC, automatically restores Compromised Armor, 50/50 chance of reloading spent Ablative Nanometal between rounds.
Nanite Sealing Charge: Restores Armor that has been compromised by an attack. 1MEC reload.
Silicon Recovery Bacteria: 50/50 chance of restoring a personal weapon destroyed with a defeated gangster. 1MEC
Tachyon Scanner: Gives a perfect accounting of whatever’s present, of use as a guidance system for detecting and attacking out-of-sight reinforcements (combine with Micromissiles and Armored AI Missiles for free round of outgoing fire before conflict). No Energy Skeleton required. +2 Initiative, 3MEC
Ion Jetbike: Requires an Energy Skeleton or it will tear your arms off. Gangsters that get an Energy Skeleton automatically get an ion jetbike of their own volition. Ion Jetbikes allow Flight Escapes, and also allow shipjacking and consumer goods tram raids.
A Fusion Afterburner adds +d4 during Flight Escapes.
Enhancements to Static Operations
Masquerade Suite: Jammer that allows continual operation of an underworld enterprise, masking its signature. Necessary to run an underworld operation in the first place. 1MEC
Automated Turrets and Drone Swarms: Can defend your Operations in your absence, but turrets are easily targeted and drone swarms tend to be easily overwhelmed by EW measures, creating a lot of expensive dinner plates. 4MEC, launch 2d4 d12 attacks alongside your defending Gangsters
Sensor Suite: +d4 to your initiative. 1MEC
Traps: Fusion Fougasse, Zero-point vacuum bomb, EMP. EMPs are 1MEC and destroy drone swarms (and disable zero-point vacuum bombs, which must be recalibrated between rounds). A fusion fougasse is 1MEC and launches a d12 attack on attackers, with a 50/50 chance of launching a d12 attack on your men as well. Zero-point vacuum bombs destroy the arcology and kill everybody present, with a 1/20 chance of flyers escaping
Expeditionary Activities
You must personally lead Expeditionary Activities.
Each round, allocate Gangsters to your Static Operations and optionally to an Expeditionary Activity:
Kidnap for ransom
You ascertain an opportunity to kidnap a valuable vulnerable VIP (d6):
1-2: Gang leader. 3MEC ransom. Protected by 3d6 Gangsters.
3-4: Society person. 6MEC ransom. Protected by d4 Squads of Corporate Mercenaries.
5-6: Advisor to the spider droids. 9MEC ransom. Has a State Forces asset as protection, roll on the encounter table for which, rerolling results of 2. A roll of 10 means that the advisor is foolishly undefended.
You may decide whether or not to take this opportunity. However, you will not know exactly what defenders the VIP will have available until you arrive.
Each turn, you have a 1/4 chance of ransoming your captive.
If you suffer a raid:
Gang leader: 4d6 Gangsters
Society person: d4+2 squads of Corporate Mercenaries
Advisor: d4+1 State Forces
Raid underworld assets
You attack a wildcat underworld operation or meeting not affiliated with a major gang or interstellar mafia.
You encounter 2d10 Gangsters. If you win, you recover d6MEC.
Strip superconductive matter from infrastructure
1MEC. Roll d12; on a 1, there is a response. Roll d8 for which:
1-7: d4 squads of Corporate Mercenaries.
8: State Forces encounter
Seize Operation
You attack another gang, intending to seize their Static Operation and assets and shatter them. Roll rng15 for which type you unearth; you may then attack or pass, ending the expeditionary phase.
Their warlord has a 50/50 of being present/away.
The site is defended by 4d6 Gangsters, including the Warlord if he is present. The site has a 25% chance of turrets and a 25% chance of a plasma fougasse trap.
After you take over the site, Gangsters in the field will converge on you and attack, including the Warlord if you did not kill him at the site. You will have to fight 3d4 of them. If you were defeated attacking the Static Operation, they will attack one of your Static Operations instead.
If you seize the site or escape after defeating its defenders, you gain 3d4MEC
The following expeditionary activities require ion jetbikes for all participating gangsters or a hijacked voidcraft
Raid consumer goods tram
You engage in rounds of Looting. You can engage in as many rounds as you like. Every round, roll on the following table. After that, roll for Response. There is a 1/6 chance of Response every round.
Loot Table (d20):
1-10: Consumer Goods worth 1MEC
11-14: Consumer Goods worth 2MEC
15-16: Passenger Car (chance of important VIP slumming it)
17-18: Treasure Table Roll
19-20: Strategic Relocation, State Force encounter within (reroll 2)
Response Table (d6):
1-5: d4 squads of Corporate Mercenaries
6: State Forces encounter
Skyjack voidcraft
Note: A collapse destroys the vessel, launching a d20 attack on everyone aboard (if they have jetbikes they can try to escape, but those who don't and boarded from another vessel are automatically killed unless otherwise noted)
Roll for what vessel you encounter (d10:
1. Trash Scow: d6 crewmen with coilguns. Chop for 2d4MEC.
2. Smuggling Vessel: 2d4 Gangsters, 9/10 chance of contraband worth d4MEC, 1/10 chance of Treasure Table roll. Chop for 2d4MEC.
3. Courier: d4 squads of Corporate Mercenaries, roll on Treasure Table. Chop for 2d4MEC.
4. Pirate Q-Ship: 4d4 Gangsters, 1 Warlord, plunder worth 3d4 MEC aboard. Chop for 2d6MEC.
5. Freighter: d4 squads of Corporate Mercenaries, consumer goods worth d8MEC. Chop for 3d4MEC.
6. Luxury Yacht: When you board, enter the Kidnap For Ransom activity. Chop for 3d4MEC.
7. Surveyor: Automated vessel, boarders suffer attacks by d4 drone bomblet swarms supported by an AWACS drone swarm, an ablative drone swarm, and a white blood drone swarm. Chop for 4d4MEC
8. Emissarial Vessel: VIP ransomable for 4MEC, d4 squads of Foreign Solar Infantry (as Armored Corporate Mercenaries with d10 coilgun skil), chop for 3d4MEC
9. Neurointerment Clipper: d4 squads of Corporate Mercenaries, 2d20 captives aboard who would make viable Gangsters and can be recruited for free once the ship is safe. Chop for 2d4MEC.
10. Tariff Cutter: State Forces aboard (reroll 2 and 10), d4 rolls on Treasure Table. Chop for 4d4. 50% chance of Response.
Captured vessels can be used to skyjack vessels in the future, negating the need to buy energy skeletons for every participant.
You have a flat 20% chance of interception by a spider droid warship after seizing a vessel. The hijacked ship (and any ship you brought) will suffer one warship attack before Gangsters with energy skeletons/jetbikes can flee (with anything you found on board; both ships are marked and will inevitably be shot down or recaptured).
Warship Weapons
All attacks ignore Armor.
d12:
1. Antimatter missile swarm: These missiles deploy their own chaff/ECM to throw off point defense systems. The ship has dozens of huge bites taken out of it like an apple; d20 attack on everyone present.
2. CIWS KEP: Ship is mortally wounded by a huge hole cut through its spine, everyone aboard has a 25% chance of being killed.
3. ECM disruptor: All Wearables except Armor and all drone swarms are disabled, jetsuit auxiliary raid follows.
4. Gamma DEP: Ship is neatly bisected one way and then the other. Everyone who can fly has a 10% chance of being killed. Those who cannot fly are killed in short order.
5. Homing flechette cloud: Comes for you straight through the hull, everyone who doesn't have Active Camouflage or a Defense Suite is killed.
6. Ion lance: Everyone with an energy skeleton is fried, everyone without one can escape once the ship crashes.
7. Magnetized flechette flak: Ship has every system destroyed, d12 attack on everyone present.
8. Mass accelerator: Generally for bombardment of static targets, fires a neutronium round. The ship is torn to pieces, everyone aboard has a 25% chance of being killed, and an arcology is probably destroyed on the surface.
9. Nanite cloud flak: Ship is eaten from the outside,
10. Sand cloud flak: Far more effective in space where there's no resistance to velocity. Debrides the ship and destroys sensors; followed up by Jetsuit Auxiliary boarding action.
11. Tachyon accelerator: The weapon flashes across the ship and everybody aboard is killed.
12. Zero-point vacuum missiles: Sucks ship into mini-singularity, everyone aboard who can fly has a 50% chance of survival, everyone else killed.
Note: Spider droid ships engage large targets such as Dyson spheres, Alderson disks, and ringworlds using warp torpedoes, profoundly expensive weapons that expend a warp drive and its attendant frictionless matter.
When you face enemy gangsters, derive their equipment using the following table:
Enemy Gangster Table
d20
1-13: Gangster: Carries a coilgun.
14: Dicer: Carries a fusion beam.
15: Rocket Stroker: Carries an Armored AI Missile in addition to his coil. This can be retrieved if he's killed using a coil.
16: Battery Head: Carries an Antimatter Annihilator.
17: Big D: Wears a Defense Suite, carries a White Blood Drone Swarm and a coil.
18: Scantron: Carries a tachyon scanner and a coil.
19: Hard Case: Armored, Drone Bomblet swarm, coil
20: Warlord: Armored, Defense Suite, Fusion Afterburner, wields a Plasmacloud DEP.
Treasure Table
Valuable Black Market Trade Goods
1. Bulk Positronic Brains: May or may not come with nascent or bootstrapped sapiences. 1MEC, 25% chance of 3MEC
2. Dark Matter: May cause critical disentrapment event if the carrier is hit, automatically killing everyone present and causing a collapse: 3MEC
3. False Realm Digitally-Interred Captives: May be trapped in a digital paradise, a time-dilated digital Hell, digital corporate life, or a digital code monkey farm. 4MEC
4. Milligram of Frictionless Matter: 10MEC
5. Raw Nanites: 5MEC, gray goo event if bearer slain, as Unsafeguarded Nanite Breeding Program entrapment failure event.
6. Superweapon precursors: 1MEC
When someone attempts to escape a pursuer by flight, they roll d8 (+d4 if they have a fusion afterburner) vs an attack by the pursuer. If they succeed, they escape.
Victory
You end the game by Retirement:
-Acquire tract and residence on forgotten periphery: 4MEC (mostly for bribes and transport)
-Buy blockade runner with illegal stealth core and make a run for warthog man space: 6MEC
-Purchase a polybar and new identity in an entertainment district: 8MEC
-Bribe civil service for advisory capacity with spider droids; you will have a comfortable, safe life, and will not be neurointered without treasonous behavior or dramatic failure, but you will be prevented from reproducing (by whatever method if organic or by guided instance generation if positronic): 14MEC
-Start schismatic branch of Millenarian Communal Reaction called the Actual Millenarian Communal Reaction, war with the MCR, the spider droids, and the underworld: 19MEC
-Buy voidcraft and arm it for piracy: 21MEC
-Acquire luxurious serviced traversal dome on resort world that was mostly emptied of people and left to languish after conquest: 35MEC
-Buy luxurious arcology on a better ecumenopolis: 700MEC
Notes
Voidcraft
Spider droid ships responding to hijackings will usually be small, light craft that can get into the planetary tangle and hit area targets far beneath them in the labyrinth; siege ships like planetary debridement platforms won’t be brought in unless there’s e.g. a nanite superproliferation event.
The Powers
Spider Droids
They gained stable dominance by backstabbing another droid empire when it was attacked from outside of the galaxy. The spider droid empire was “elected” as the protector of the sphere by the other nearby empires, and as soon as it had ground down the invasion, the spider droids sprang on their neighbors and neurointerred most of their populations.
The Millenarian Communal Reaction
Revolutionary group strategy-of-tensioning by WMDing arcologies, hoping for a spider droid overreaction against the people, but the spider droids are too consumed with their arcane compute-heavy physics research to care that much about the state of the ecumenopolis
The Spider droids are generally too concerned with their projects to implement effective totalitarianism on the population in general; it’s more episodic
Other Empires
Things aren’t much better for an individual sapient elsewhere in the galaxy; huge adjacent empires include two varieties of respectively man-eating and man-puppeting plants, an AI that cyborgs organic beings into its service, a Chitin-man military dictarship, and an empire of cybernetic religious fanatics. The main foreign nation currently actually afflicting the spider droids in any way are a de facto criminal cartel, the Black Binary (named for its twin black holes). Really, they are the spider droid empire’s primary predator (or parasite).
There is a vast defense federation of wildly diverse empires that covers about a third of the galaxy, while the final third is a patchwork of independent space and mostly-uninhabited areas depopulated by the spider droids; these states are being gradually carved up by the empire, stripped of their population for neutrointerment and the filling-out of the spider droids’ core systems
Things have gotten to the point where the spider droids are executing envoys from defense federation empires in preparation to attack them, as well.
Behind more dangerous empires are a nation of neutral but totalitarian eyestalked sone and seaweed crabs. Further away there are democratic Slime Dwarves, and a peaceable realm that was once a galactic force of terroristic raiders. On the far side of the galaxy, there is a minor realm of peaceable if strict warthog men.
Digital Intelligence
A positronic brain digitally stores a sapience.
Lossless uploading of consciousness to non-positronic systems is considered an ongoing problem in computer science, though the MCR believes that the true authorities of the spider droid empire exist this way and are trying to find them (though if this were true, the leaders wouldn’t be on this ecumenopolis).
Cloned, blank people can be used for compute, but developed, complex brain states have far more applications.
-
