Wardens! Not enough vampires in your Mothership game? Need more bloodsucking parasite monsters? Not enough Gothic in your Noir? Want more Dracula in your derelict? Fear not! I've long thought about how vampires fit into Mothership -- spurred on by reading the fantastic Blindsight novel and founded on my love of horror media. Vampires are no strangers to science fiction, either.
So herein, first I'll review what's out there in third party-produced material. Only material that overtly involves humanoid vampires -- not any sort of haemophagic monsters like space-leeches, of which there are plenty.
Second I'll consider the nature of vampires and how that fits Mothership and yet hasn't yet been capitalised upon in published work, from what I've seen. What makes a vampire Mothership-scary is that it is us, but against us, and in some way superior to us. And in space, a big point is that vampires thrive in the dark, and space is dark as fuck. We might not forget that they are sexy, but we might not want that in our Mothership RPG. How can we use those and other vampiric themes?
Fun-sucking spoilers ahead!
I've not played any of these yet, but have read and now re-read them for this post.
First, there are rules to play straight-up space vampires, which can include Gothic supernatural vampires or just more alien ones, as a Mothership PC (or NPC/monster) class. Plenty of rules to bring them to (un)life in your game.
Rane in Blood-- An epic, atmospheric early Mothership module that has brutal space-pirates who feast on blood as cultists. They draw on "red gnostic gas"; sourced from a nebula; for powers. Wicked! So they are not classic Gothic vampires. PCs might get that wrong impression, which could be fun. It is a deadly module with (confessed early on in the text!) big potential for TPKs. I like the vibe a lot. It is nasty, action-packed sci-fi horror. A rare module example where a space-battle might happen. Against a vampire ship! And the art is vibrant with a glaring crimson style, excellent isometric maps and detail. Very cool. Interesting new vampire rules, too; including for PCs. I rank it as a close #2 out of the seven vampiric modules I have.
The Vampire's Melody-- It's a sketch of a module featuring a classic Gothic vampire that lives close to a planetary settlement and lures residents to it. A mystery to solve. Beautiful graphic design. Some novel ideas like a bewitching vampire with a bone-and-sinew harp, aided by a lunar eclipse. But I think it leaves far too much for a Warden to flesh out and the framework given doesn't excite me to do that. It feels like a D&D module to me; more like Gothic (Ravenloft) fantasy than sci-fi. I'm not fond of literal Earthly rats and bats and such as dangerous monsters or just regular inhabitants of planets in Mothership and the same extends to draculas. Year of the Rat is more my vibe for rats as enemies, and even with that I alien-up the "rats" when running it. I like to keep my Mothership un-Earthly. Just my opinion. I rank this one as #5 out of 7.
Out of Darkness-- Literally Dracula is on your spaceship. Attended to by a film-maker named Ridley with a camera-bot, and potentially pitted against "Van Deisel", a blind killer with a bomb around his neck, Jinx the cat and other charming NPCs, and a GM'd werewolf. Crisp, clear graphic design. Very pleasant to behold, although a lot is white space. This could be a fun beer n' pretzels game. 1d100 list of coffee mugs is great. #7 out of 7.
Red Shift-- Again, Dracula on a spaceship (the Demetri, nudge nudge); with two other vampires: the Count's beloved Countess and their (rebellious) Renfield-like thrall. The PCs' ship docks and they get to explore as the mystery deepens. Although there is a timeline that presumes PCs will be happy being railroaded for hours of game-time, that is fixable with effort. The module's graphic design (e.g. an "exploded" map of the colony ship) is visually nice. Dracula is, as one would expect, a tremendously deadly foe (DR of 20). More rats and bats. Once more it's not my thing; transplanting the Gothic Dracula straight into Mothership doesn't give me the right horror vibes. But again that's just my opinion. #6 out of 7.
Breathe Easy-- Vampires are not a big part of this setting or plot. However, I hadn't noticed this on my first skim of the module yet here is an example where a vampire can be (virtually) found on Prospero's Dream space station! In a slickworld "Skull Tower" (very brief, linear scenario). #4 out of 7; maybe; am not sure as I'd want to beef up the detail in this for play; but the fun Breathe Easy module is about far more than this one vampire so it's not a fair comparison.
The Cohort-- This module rocks. As usual, the creator Simon Taylor hits the ball out of the park with the art and graphic design and the coolness of the story. Elegant, dramatic "pulpy" text that sets up a unique adventure and gets the reader pumped up to play it. A Demeter-like derelict ship, described in rich detail, with a biomechanical vampiric "Flayed Prophet". The evocative art drives home the horror of these alien cybernetic vampires. They are not Gothic vampires. They are monstrous and could serve more as Cosmic Horror Vampires; or Body Horror in how they alter victims' bodies with "nanotechnological coloniser virus". There's a blood red nebula (with its own rules and encounters), "Remade" (virus-overwritten; not infected) thralls that "regurgitate a blood-rich nanite slurry into critical ship systems". Bloody hell that's rad. This one is a high priority for me to run with my campaign, and The Red Moon trifold that connects with it is also a banger. #1 out of 7; wins the Elder Vampire prize.
Here are some thoughts on what hasn't been explored in Mothership scenarios that vampires could offer.
- Androids as terrifying... or sympathetic?-- vampires; or instead vampires that feed on the pseudomilk of androids? Shiver. That's scary. That's Mothership vibe right there. Has an AI gone mad and produced these horrors? Maybe Monarch from Gradient Descent? Or an android viral algorithm produced by a hacker who must be stopped?
- Cryopods are coffins. Run with that! Who's asleep in that ancient cryopod on that lost Jump-9 ship? Feels like it's been done enough, maybe, as a trope. But you could push the coffin idea further. The "monster" needs that cryopod and the PCs control it, or PCs want to prevent space-dracula from reaching the cryopod before a timer runs out (that sun goes nova, etc.).
- Or run with the notion of how vampires afflict the helpless -- the enthralled, the sleeping or... the cryosleeping! Android taking a slurp while you're cryoed in hyperspace? Or was it... (next)
- What if Hyperspace Raiders from Unconfirmed Contact Reports were vampires? Great idea.
- What if your five hundred year-old vampire in Mothership was born in 2026? What is its perspective on our history? (ugh... now that's horror...) It has seen so much. Dare you learn from it? Can it quote H.P. Lovecraft? Or Ayn Rand? Or Elon Musk? (maybe let's not go there)
- Vampires that suck radiation and mutate as they do. Keep them away from your warp cores and reactors!
- Taking a premise that vampires can survive in space, what if they haunt a powerless, zero-G, frigid derelict, waiting ages for prey, perhaps guided into shipping lanes as they hunt? This takes the classic Gothic vibe of a haunted house; no stranger to sci-fi.
- Vampires are about hunger; insatiable, even. What might they hunger for in Mothership that PCs would want to oppose? A twist that they are undead/mutant crew that feed not on blood but on... oxygen? Cryofluid? Electricity? Fuel? Radio signals? Something that PCs/humans attach great value to in space, and has some local concentration that is tempting sustenance for space-vampires, and scarce plus precious enough to create horror.
- Vampires as hunted or to-be-saved rather than hunters? They are victims. A corporation wants them for bioweapons development. A mad scientist has captured them for experiments on immortality. An easy story to create. So many Mothership modules fit this template. Just twist it in a way that amplifies the horror via the sad nature of vampires. (but they're also a-holes)
- Vampires as old stories that provoke an adventure. The PCs know the stories of Dracula and such, and this knowledge leads them to a slickworld where they must use that knowledge to defeat a digital vampire or undo its web of code? (or play a Castlevania MMORPG)
- Vampires and castles go together. What's a sci-fi incarnation of a castle? Loads. Not just big ships and stations and planetary bases but how about an icy asteroid travelling at vast speed, PCs must land on it and invade its secret ice-fortress, while vampire-things inside thaw (against a ticking clock)?
- That friggin' "voyage of the Demeter" (ship arriving to port empty of life; full of unlife and vermin) in Bram Stoker's Dracula is one of the scariest bits (the recent movie attempt however, errrrrr...) and is the making of a great Mothership scenario, if not already done. Red Shift almost does that with the ship Ceres (get it?). To de-Dracula the Demeter space-freighter, make the vampire have a dehydrating essence that literally turns organic beings into dust, so the empty ship has piles of suspicious dust?
- Detouring around sexy vampires to other core issues: vampires have tasted the forbidden fruit and revel in it. They are blasphemers. Rebels. Tempters. Great traits for Mothership. A ship's captain has some invaluable data but will you pay their baleful price for it in... buckets of blood?
- Vampire stories (very) often are about class warfare/social inequality. Hmm do we see that in Mothership? Hell yeah! Corporations. They suck the financial-blood of the masses. A C-level mastermind NPC who is secretly a cyber-ramped-up vamp intent on sucking the PCs into debt? Do they literally suck credits from accounts by hacking in a non-mundane way? Or a mechavampire Corpo Human Resources officer who fuels their cybernetics with human plasma?
- Vampires are about time. Time-travelling vampires? Timeless love? “Do you believe in destiny? That even the powers of time can be altered for a single purpose? That the luckiest man who walks on this earth is the one who finds… true love?”― Dracula; and let's not forget "I've crossed oceans of time to find you." ― super sexy Dracula portrayed by Gary Oldman to Mina Murray Harker (Winona Ryder) in Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Is a space-vampire using warp technology to try to bring his long-dead love back, even if it creates a black hole that kills everyone else?
- Space is about cosmic horror (vastness) and vampires touch that theme-- take it from Dracula himself: “I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul.”― Dracula
- Vampires are about loneliness and the unknown. “I will not let you go into the unknown alone.”
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WHAT THE... WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST WATCH
- Ellen' is his undoing by her luring him to face the deadly dawn -- maintaining this solar tie-in could be clever, if maybe there is a solar flare, or magnetic pulse, or aurora borealis? A blessing by the Solarian Church of Prospero's Dream?
- Or, inverting the darkness motif, what if the Star Vampire emitted light or another kind of energy? So bright that the crew are sent to snuff it out?
- Continuing with Prospero's Dream, what if one of the above vampires haunted The Dream? So many tasty prey there, and tech. Does the vampire have hidden sleeve copies of itself? How does it relate to other factions, especially the Doptowners (always good victims on The Dream that need rescue) and Caliban's brood/ACMD? Could it be an oxygen-vampire? I love that idea so much I may need to use it. The Dream and its oxygen-scarcity foundation begs for some freaky gas-vampires.
So I've sort of reversed my original views on vampires in Mothership from when I conceived this post. I didn't like the idea much. If you want vampires or werewolves, perhaps play one of those RPGs; set one in space or a space-themed amusement park or whatever. BUT if we do away with the Gothic Transylvanian transplant, there's plenty of tropes left to gnaw on and inspire a fun Mothership scenario and epic villain or such, and yet have it still be familiar enough that the thirst for dark tropes can be satiated. And thence comes my idea for a vampire-themed Mothership campaign. If only I had the time!
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