BUILDING YOUR CREW
Every player in Mortisphere begins with a crew.
Your crew is not an army. It is not a regiment of identical soldiers marching beneath a banner. It is a collection of individuals brought together by circumstance, necessity, ambition or desperation.
Every member has a value.
Every member has a history.
Every member can be lost.
Building a crew is the first step in creating your story in Mortisphere.
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STARTING CREW VALUE
A standard Mortisphere crew begins with 60 points.
These points represent the resources, influence and opportunities available to your crew at the beginning of the campaign.
Players spend these points to recruit members.
The value of each member is determined by their die.
Die| Cost — d4| 4 points d6| 6 points d8| 8 points d10| 10 points d12| 12 points d20| 20 points
A player may spend their points however they choose.
A crew containing many smaller members will have more options and greater numbers.
A crew containing fewer larger members will have more powerful individuals but fewer opportunities to act.
There is no correct way to build a crew.
A survivor is only as valuable as what they manage to accomplish.
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RECRUITING MEMBERS
Members of a crew are recruited through the options available during the campaign.
The campaign begins in Last Light, where survivors, mercenaries, creatures and remnants of forgotten civilizations gather beneath the final lights of civilization.
The available recruits represent what can be found, purchased or convinced to join your cause.
A recruit may be:
- A hardened survivor. - A Mycelian inhabiting a forgotten body. - A mutated organism. - An ancient machine. - A relic of a lost civilization. - Something that should have disappeared long before the end of the universe.
Every recruit has a cost, represented by their die value.
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THE CREW LEADER
Every crew is led by a single individual.
The leader is the player character and the centre of the crew's story.
A leader may not always be the strongest member of the crew.
They may be a brilliant strategist commanding stronger beings.
They may be a ruthless survivor who simply refuses to die.
They may be a creature with ambitions far beyond its apparent importance.
The leader has additional rules and abilities that represent their unique position within the crew.
If other members are weapons, followers or companions, the leader is the reason they are together.
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CREW IDENTITY
Before choosing individual members, every player should consider what kind of crew they are creating.
A crew might be:
Scavengers
Survivors who search the remains of dead civilizations for anything useful.
They rely on adaptability and finding value where others see only ruin.
Mercenaries
Those who fight because someone, somewhere, is still willing to pay.
Payment may be meaningless in the final age, but people continue to want things.
Devotees
Those who serve an idea, belief or forgotten power.
The gods may be dead, but their followers are not always ready to accept that.
Predators
Those who survive by taking from others.
In Mortisphere, hunger takes many forms.
Remnants
Beings that belong to another age entirely.
Ancient machines, forgotten organisms and impossible survivors may carry memories of worlds that no longer exist.
These are examples only.
Your crew's identity emerges through play.
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GROWING YOUR CREW
A crew does not remain the same throughout a campaign.
Members gain equipment.
Members change.
Members become stronger.
Members become damaged.
Members die.
A d6 that survives dozens of battles may become more important than any newly recruited d12.
The purpose of progression is not to create a perfect fighting force.
It is to create a crew with a history.
Mortisphere remembers what happens.
Your crew should too.
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BALANCING CREWS
Mortisphere assumes that crews develop at different speeds.
A newly created crew should not be permanently punished for entering a campaign against an experienced crew.
When necessary, a less-developed crew receives temporary additional resources to bring them closer to the current campaign level.
These temporary additions do not replace the history of an experienced crew.
They simply ensure that every battle remains a conflict between opposing forces rather than a battle already decided before it begins.
The final age has enough unfairness already.