Crush Depth - Additional Details

Overview

Underwater horror has been pitched a few times on the Mothership discord. Underwater horror is pretty cool. Soma is easily one of the best underwater horror video-games out there, and Peter Watt's Starfish is probably the best underwater horror novel.

This started out as underwater horror. As I wrote it, it evolved more into something like...underwater action thriller. Brimsker over on the Discord was a huge help in this. Brimsker looked at the first draft, gave some great insight into what might not work, played the revised version I sent, and then provided even more insight after that. Thanks a ton!

You can download the module here free of charge. It's meant to be used with the Mothership sci-fi horror RPG, but can probably be hacked up into a variety of OSR formats with minimal effort. Here's the pitch: 

Crush Mare is a maximum-security prison located deep below Titan’s methane sea, Kraken Mare. The worst criminals in the sector are kept here. Mass murderers, serial killers, political prisoners...

Tectonic activity on Titan was thought to be non-existent until today. A massive 8.5 earthquake has rocked the facility and sent the prison into total anarchy.

Life support has been destroyed beyond repair. Liquid methane is pouring in at every crack. Fires have broken out across the prison and are spreading rapidly.

Prisoners are rioting. Communication with the surface has been lost. The only escape sub is locked behind a biometric key, and the only non-pulverized Keyed Guard hasn’t been seen since the quake. Guards and prisoners are racing against one another to find the Keyed Guard and escape.

In two hours, the entire facility will implode under the pressure of Titan’s Kraken Mare...

I try to keep the module pretty straight-forward and bare-bones. It's all designed to fit on a single page, front and back, for ease of use and reference.

As such, some details had to be skimped. So if you're running the module and would like some additional context (which isn't necessary to run it, and GMs are, of course, free to add their own flare or interpretations to the module), here it is.

A Brief History of the Prison

Crush Mare was built about a hundred years ago. It was a well-maintained prison facility, as far as prison facilities are concerned. Well-maintained is a very floaty term here. It's a run-down shit hole and doesn't contain even a tenth of the amenities newer prisons have. It's cold most of the time, even with the heaters running full blast. It smells awful. Everything echoes in the most annoying way. You can hear someone shitting on the opposite side of the cell block.

It was built with extreme isolation in mind. It was originally meant to house some of the most egregious criminals in the Sol sector. In the last century or so, as better methods of dealing with violent criminals have been invented/legalized, Crush Mare's purpose has devolved. Today, people who are sent to Crush Mare aren't meant to be punished, per se. They're meant to be forgotten. As such, it's filled with more than just your typical heinous murderers - it's filled with people that various governments and corporations around the Sol sector would rather the public simply not think about anymore. Said governments/corporate entities can't legally kill the prisoners, but they can do the next best thing.

This makes it a great place for political/corporate inconveniences (which most of the "residents" are). The population still consists of violent offenders and completely insane androids (who, for one reason or another, cannot be legally decommissioned). But it also contains a fair number of people who just pissed off the wrong government or got a little too nosey with the wrong corporation. Population of violent offenders to political inconveniences is probably 1:10.

Since it's a place meant to be forgotten, its budget has dropped proportionally. In recent years, the wrong corners have been cut, maintenance not quite as diligent as it used to be. Prison guard salary has dropped. Rudimentary entry-control technology is still widely utilized and in desperate need of replacement (luckily that won't be a problem for much longer). It was never going to survive that earthquake, but with the declining budget, deteriorating facilities, and drop in competent personnel...it became one hiccup away from a humanitarian crisis.

Quick Context for Characters

Edmund and Brace. They're a bad duo. Or are they? The module is purposefully ambiguous, and I want to keep it that way. Let the GM/Warden/Players decide what they will. Their objective backstory is sealed, classified to hell and back again. Their records aren't even stored on-site.

They've got a reputation around the prison for being exactly the kind of people you do not fuck with...but how much of that reputation was earned, and how much was craftily planted by them? Are they really so violent, or are they just very good at manipulating the truth? The only thing that's certain about them is that they'll do anything and everything to get the hell out of that prison alive.

The Transporters. They're about as ethical as mercenaries can be. They're not really out to purposefully hurt anyone, but at the end of the day, then need two things very badly: 1) to survive, and 2) to get paid. This makes them dangerous, but predictable. And manipulable. If you know a person's motivations, you can play into them. The Transporters aren't here to play games, they're not here to play politics. They want those two things, and those two things only, and their desperation to get those two things radiates from them like a nuclear meltdown.

The Transporters are there because someone in the Ganymede government learned that Edmund and Brace have been stashed away in Crush Mare. That "someone in the Ganymede government" really, really doesn't like Edmund and Brace, and so diverted an obscene amount of funds to bribe the warden of Crush Mare to release the duo into the care of the Transporters. The Transporters, in turn, are hired to relocate the duo to Ganymede to stand trial for perpetrating one of the worst acts of terrorism that the United Moons of Jupiter has ever seen. Are Edmund and Brace guilty? Ostensibly, that's what the trial is for. But everyone knows the Jovian court system isn't what it used to be.

Conclusion

I would like to make a straight underwater horror module at some point, but the trick is finding something that contributes to the idea of it. Big sea monsters, scary dark...it's all been done to death, and done better than I could ever write it. While I don't believe that every idea or contribution to a genre has to be original, every idea should at least help to build the genre.

This module is an attempt to build the genre, and hopefully provide players and GMs/wardens a place to tell a story that is unique for them. At the very least, hopefully it will provide a night of pulpy fun.