Emergence: an escape funnel adventure
Escape the Henkō Acquisitions Correctional Complex before the prison and its inhabitants destabilize.
Emergence is a brand new module for the Mothership Sci-fi Horror RPG, crowdfunding on Kickstarter February 11th to March 11th for Zine Month and Zine Quest 2025. It’s a 28-page funnel adventure; each player runs four inmates within the prison, with the ultimate goal of escape.
It’s written by Carson Brown, project manager and a writer on Devil’s Due, coming out later this year. Artwork is by the talented Chaoclypse. Edited by Jordan Boschman. Graphic design consultation by Jean Verne. You can sign up for project updates and launch notification for Emergence here.
Backers at the physical level will receive a free patch when pledging within the first 48 hours of the campaign!
Emergence is a 28-page digest zine featuring:
- Low-prep, ready-to-run funnel for any Warden to bring to their Mothership table.
- Brand-new, dangerous horrors that twist into environmental dangers even after death.
- Multi-level facility with puzzles, encounters, NPC factions, and mysteries waiting for your players to uncover.
- Easy character creation with crime backstories and minimal equipment, a new twist on Mothership using the tried-and-true funnel classic of DCC fame.
Henkō Acquisitions Correctional Complex (the HACC) is an underground prison, a spike of concrete and steel lodged deep into the surface of an abandoned mining planet. The surface is dry, cold, and dark, and high winds power the facility. Between deliveries of supplies and prisoners, the HACC stands alone, an inverted tower of prison labour built into the remnants of a mine.
Prison staff destructively “process” each new inmate and clone them using a novel fungal material farmed in lower sub-levels, 3D printing near exact copies. The company double-dips their funding this way: they profit off full prison terms, and develop this cloning technology with zero ethical oversight.
A competing corporation’s infiltration agents seeking to learn the secrets of the HACC have inadvertently caused a dangerous explosion, cracking the facility’s foundation. The power outages and flooding provide enough of a distraction for a group of inmates to make a break for it, but their escape reveals more about the true nature of the facility—and themselves.
Content Warnings: violence, gore, body horror, forced medical experimentation, unjust imprisonment
