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The Iron Hive: a space station setting for Mothership RPG

The Iron Hive: a space station setting for Mothership RPG

Explore The Iron Hive, an extremely densely populated and largely lawless space station. A place where criminals, bounty hunters, and residents collide. From the forgotten mines to The Jade Market, they all have things to do and stories to tell!
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MOTHERSHIP MONTH 👽
#Urban
#Horror
#Sci-Fi
mothership-month

This project is part of MOTHERSHIP MONTH 👽, which runs from November 12th - December 10th 2024. Learn more →

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part of the text on this image can be found in the following paragraph and on "What's Inside the Iron Hive" section


Welcome! To the sprawling, lawless space station adrift in the depths of space called The Iron Hive; a refuge for criminals, proving ground for bounty hunters, and just "home" for a selected, not so lucky, few. Inspired by the chaotic energy of urban sprawls of the past like the Kowloon Walled City, The Iron Hive is a maze of neon-lit markets, cramped tenements, hidden dangers, and untold secrets; but not without the humanity that accompanies every community, The Iron Hive also shines a light on those who call it home, why are they still here? Why don't they just leave?

Whether you’re escaping the law, tracking a high-value target, or just trying to survive, every shadowy sector holds new stories, alliances, and threats, waiting for you to uncover or avoid. Choose your path and prepare for what lurks within The Iron Hive.
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This space station has been repurposed several times, which is what gives it it's special charm, brought to life through unique sectors, hidden locations, and countless secrets. 

⬢ Within its labyrinthine layers, you'll explore and navigate:
  • 8 Detailed Sectors. Each area has its own story, culture, and hazards. From black market and mining  tunnels to claustrophobic coffin housing and eerie temples.
  • 6 Unique NPCs. Each giving you a glimpse into cultures, power dynamics, and how life goes when you live inside The Iron Hive.
  • 5 Criminal Syndicates. Each with its own unique modus operandi and area of expertise.
  • 1 new Horror. The secrets that hide within The Iron Hive's conception are unknown to many, fear itself keeps those secrets from spreading.
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text on this image can be found in Pledge Levels section
Go to Pledge Levels section →



The Iron Hive is written in such a way where each sector follows the same structure, it is made for Wardens to be able to open a sector and by just reading the titles, they can get already a general idea of what's in here. But let's better expand on what exactly it has in terms of gameplay:

text from this image can be found down below under "Each sector has" quote section

⬢ Each sector has
  • Sight, Smell, Atmosphere, and Sound descriptors to help you set the mood.
  • A 3 titles structure on the first page where each has the same type of content:
    • 1st title: Key Features. 
    • 2nd title: Potential Encounters. 
    • 3rd title: Hooks. 
    • The titles themselves already offer a glimpse into each section as well! 
  • On the second page each sector has it's own content that can be easily exported into any session of any campaign in any location! Some examples are:
    • Black Market Contract Maker to create the perfect job given out by the worst possible person. 
    • Cave system generator using a deck of poker cards and 1d10 you'll be able to generate a new layout each time! 
    • 1 new horror that feeds on fear, and has mechanics around Panic Checks 
    • 5 Criminal Syndicates each with their own area of expertise, and easy to export to other places 
    • Rolling tables such as Scrap Yard Finds, Community Events, Stalls, Confiscated Cargo and more!

⬢ Content for the whole station
  • There are also tables for station-wide events, why is the crew there, and random search results!
  • You can mess things up even more with 6 Overarching plots to serve as a spark for you to develop as your group progresses through them.

The Iron Hive is written with a principle in mind, and it is for you to make your Iron Hive unique, don't worry about getting things wrong, don't worry about having to read everything to have to include it in your games, don't worry about anything other than having fun with the station and let players venture deep into it, let them fall in love with The Iron Hive.
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The main foundations of The Iron Hive were pulled from the Kowloon Walled City, how it came to be and what it became. The Lucky House in Hong Kong, coffin homes with barely any room to stretch. Barrios in Venezuela, having grown with friends and family there, understanding the inner communities behind these places. Asian Horror movies and it's depiction of forbidden ritual sites. GTFO (game) and it's forgotten mines. These all come together to build this layered mess of a space station.
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Check the achievements and their progress! →

All projects fund reward! HiveCorp Industries' Asteroid XY-90 expedition patch





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Operation Golden Cut and The Iron Hive are teaming in a Cross-Collab to bring even more content to our shared backers! If both campaigns reach their funding goals, anyone who backs both projects will receive exclusive bonus content at no extra cost.

Backers will get 3 index-card-sized, plug-n-play extras featuring content designed to integrate elements from The Iron Hive into Operation Golden Cut. You can use these extras as intended or incorporate them wherever you like!

We both have several concepts available and it will be up to you, cross-collab backers, to decide which you want to see! The voting will be run through the campaign.

Initially, this reward will be available in Digital form. However, once we reach a combined total of 150 backers, it will be upgraded to a Physical reward!
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To help build an interconnected universe for Wardens to dive into, Syndicate Wastrels and a number of other campaigns are inserting cross-references and easter eggs into their random tables and side content that will allow you to organically (or accidentally!) link between products. Check them out below! 



  • 90 Seconds to Midnight by Ranne
  • The Iron Hive by Wicked Oni Publishing
  • Not Enough Scoundrels by 5 Million Worlds Press
  • Operation Golden Cut by Krakenhund Studios
  • Death Pays All Debts by Octopus Ink Games


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Brace yourself for Mothership Month—a group-collab project led by Tuesday Knight Games featuring some of the brightest stars from the Mothership third-party publishing (3PP) community. Each 👩‍🚀 creator has launched a brand new adventure filled with criminals, smugglers, and rimspace pirates.


 

Mothership Month Supply Pods

🚀 Back 5+ projects at the physical level and gain access to the SUPPLY PODS. All Supply Pods are now unlocked, so backing just 5 projects will get you all of the below:

  • 🌟 Supply Pod 1 (Unlocked!): 1 pack of Mothership CHARACTER CARDS. Each pack contains 13 pre-made character cards ready for use as pre-gen characters or NPCs. Each pack comes with at least one FOIL card.
  • 🌟 Supply Pod 2 (Unlocked!): +1 pack of Mothership CHARACTER CARDS, 5 foil campaign project stickers.
  • 🌟 Supply Pod 3 (Unlocked!): +1 pack of Mothership CHARACTER CARDS, +5 foil campaign project stickers, and an exclusive Mothership Month 24 pin!
  • 🌟 Supply Pod 4 (Unlocked!): +1 pack of Mothership CHARACTER CARDS, +11 foil campaign project stickers, and Shadow of a Doubt a brand new "reverse murder mystery" pamphlet adventure by Ian Yusem (Hull Breach, The Drain).

All in: if you back 5+ projects you're getting 4 Character Card packs (an entire deck of cards), 21 foil project stickers, an exclusive Mothership Month 24 pin, and a brand new adventure pamphlet.

Are there more Supply Pods to come? We're looking into it now!

Streams, Interviews, and more!

All month long, we're diving into the void with daily streams, unsettling interviews, and exclusive, heart-pounding reveals. Whether you're a veteran spacer or new to the Mothership, join us in celebrating the universe’s bravest survivors…and those who didn’t make it back.

Thanks for joining us on our first ever Mothership Month! 👽
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Hello! I'm Abrah, I'm the one behind Wicked Oni Publishing, I've been an always GM for over 8 years, always preferring to write my own stuff, especially enjoying the process of worldbuilding and making those worlds feel cohesive and lived in. Really enjoy to create something and then throw that into a game and see how players interact with it.

Got into the world of OSRs/NSRs not so long ago, it happened through Mothership RPG, and haven't looked back ever since, the focus these games let you have on the fiction and on the interactions with that something instead of bogging things down with rules really connected with the way I like to run games.

This year I started to get serious about writing, since I couldn't run that many games all at once, I decided to release my ideas into the world so others could run them for me, so I released my first Mothership RPG product The Vachellia Mutualizer, testing the waters, learning how to create a PDF from scratch, and how to present information to others in a modular fashion, if you're quick enough, you might be able to grab a community copy! 50 have been added to celebrate the release of this campaign!
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This project couldn't be brought to life if it weren't for these talented individuals:

Riki (lesmestiar)
Helping with several backgrounds and covers, as well as the mugshots for the factions. Also gave her insight on The Iron Hive's conception! The HiveCorp Industries' Asteroid XY-90 expedition patch is also on her hands.
Responsible for bring our favorite Personnel Assistant Xiao Mifeng to life! 
Art for 5 of the Notable NPCs, and if things go really really well, he will be illustrating a whole comic for The Iron Hive 👀 be on the lookout!
Behind everything Ruzt Ratz related, so for now, the patch, but there might be something else around the corner! 
(CW on his instagram because he is a SPFX makeup artist so you'll see like a chopped head right of the bat)


Go follow them all!

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⬢ Shipping
Shipping is going to be restricted to the US and Colombia! However! You'll be able to buy it from TKGs storefront later on so no worries! I'm based in Colombia, and international shipping are quite a handful, that's why I'm going to focus on the US (and shipping locally) to be able to focus on other things going on with the campaign (since its my first!)

Also keep in mind that the shipping will be calculated and collected after the campaign through the Pledge Manager.

⬢ Timeline
(these are rough estimates, preferring to overshoot dates)
  • The Iron Hive (Early Access PDF) -> Early Q1 2025
  • Digital Achievements (will be updated as we reach them)
    • Jade Market Sector Sheet -> Along with The Iron Hive's Early Access delivery
  • The Iron Hive (Final PDF) -> Q2 2025
  • Physical fulfillment begins -> Q3 2025


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⬢ Concerns with digital content.
I have enough experience with writing content to be really comfortable with that, the booklet is already content complete so it's not missing anything vital, I might move things around on the pages and rewrite some stuff but you have nothing to worry about it. The media content is going to be handled by both me and a group of artists I really like and enjoy so on that front we are safe as well.

⬢ Concerns with bringing said digital content into the world
What I don't have a ton of experience is with bringing digital stuff into the real world, however, I've surrounded myself with amazing local artists and they have done everything, patches, stickers, pins, comics, books, you name it, so even if I myself haven't done much, I have plenty of people I can ask for help. I have already contacted every company I need to get everything to your hands.

⬢ What could go wrong?
Printing press explodes, patch machine tangled up, stickers ruined by a flood; many things can happen that I can't predict, sure, I will try and eat up as much as I can if they ever happen. I'm overshooting the date to feel safe and leave some breathing room in case anything doesn't go as planned, the worst that can happen is that it gets delayed, but that's about it, and I'll try and keep everyone posted, even if nothing happens I want everyone to know the current state of the project! Even if shipping goes haywire and ends up more than planned, I'm willing to personally pack and send every single order in my own house (please knock on every wood for this to not be the case).

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Xiao Mifeng is the only AI that took part of this project
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