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Mothership
Gradient Descent
64 pages, ebook
First published January 12, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 22, 2021
A fantastic module and a wonderful addition to the Mothership canon.
Gradient Descent is a 64 page module zine for Mothership. An AI called Monarch has taken over an Android production facility and is seeding infiltrators throughout all facets of the galaxy. There is loot to salvage about the facility and Monarch must be stopped but others have tried - and failed - before.
Gradient Descent plays most like Diablo. There's a central hub that you can return to in order to rest up and resupply while the Deep itself is a mega dungeon with dozens of encounters. Monarch reacts to the party's actions and it gains stress much like the player characters and if pushes too far it will panic and things get very difficult from there. Likewise, the stress wears on the players and they get a new stat called the Bends. The Bends works much the same way as stress but as Monarch produces infiltrator androids with uploaded personalities, it is a measure of the character's less of confidence in their self. If the Bends gets too high they become convinced they are an android (and may actually be one. PCs can be brainscanned by Monarch prompting encounters where they meet themselves on the station).
There is tons of existential and body horror to be found. The creeping dread of doubting yourThe facility that produces the bodies of the androids has a gross fleshy feel to it and grotesque pieces of scenery like carpets of wagging tongues and a giant mouth disposal system. It even delves in to supernatural horror with apparition-like digital figures rooted to a location and effectively haunting it. It's a fantastic creepy package that will keep a group going for months.
The interior artwork is lovely. There are some 3D models that I believe were drawn in SketchUp and altered digitally for print and the fake-y look of the SketchUp models actually works here really well and gives an odd look to these images. Most everything else is done in creepy shadows and makes for a highly effective visual product. The maps are laid out like electrical schematics and they work well enough to provide a sense of space and egress.
For myself to run I'd probably set it up as a funnel and give each person 2 or 3 characters in a stable they can draw from (though only one at a time) as Monarch's station is incredibly lethal and the megadungeon is so big that I think a larger team will be necessary to get through it. It's a well made product with excellent content throughout.
Gradient Descent is a 64 page module zine for Mothership. An AI called Monarch has taken over an Android production facility and is seeding infiltrators throughout all facets of the galaxy. There is loot to salvage about the facility and Monarch must be stopped but others have tried - and failed - before.
Gradient Descent plays most like Diablo. There's a central hub that you can return to in order to rest up and resupply while the Deep itself is a mega dungeon with dozens of encounters. Monarch reacts to the party's actions and it gains stress much like the player characters and if pushes too far it will panic and things get very difficult from there. Likewise, the stress wears on the players and they get a new stat called the Bends. The Bends works much the same way as stress but as Monarch produces infiltrator androids with uploaded personalities, it is a measure of the character's less of confidence in their self. If the Bends gets too high they become convinced they are an android (and may actually be one. PCs can be brainscanned by Monarch prompting encounters where they meet themselves on the station).
There is tons of existential and body horror to be found. The creeping dread of doubting yourThe facility that produces the bodies of the androids has a gross fleshy feel to it and grotesque pieces of scenery like carpets of wagging tongues and a giant mouth disposal system. It even delves in to supernatural horror with apparition-like digital figures rooted to a location and effectively haunting it. It's a fantastic creepy package that will keep a group going for months.
The interior artwork is lovely. There are some 3D models that I believe were drawn in SketchUp and altered digitally for print and the fake-y look of the SketchUp models actually works here really well and gives an odd look to these images. Most everything else is done in creepy shadows and makes for a highly effective visual product. The maps are laid out like electrical schematics and they work well enough to provide a sense of space and egress.
For myself to run I'd probably set it up as a funnel and give each person 2 or 3 characters in a stable they can draw from (though only one at a time) as Monarch's station is incredibly lethal and the megadungeon is so big that I think a larger team will be necessary to get through it. It's a well made product with excellent content throughout.
February 20, 2022
This is very interesting.
I'm not totally sold on Mothership, though I haven't had a chance to play it yet. Still, even if it doesn't end up being a go-to game for me, there are so many great idea factories and toolkits that have come out of it.
This "megadungeon" is full of great ideas to mine. A mad A.I., corrupt corporations, horrible experiments, multiple factions. Some great stuff.
I get what they were going with when it comes to the map design...but I don't know how user friendly it's actually going to be. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe if I started running it, the map would make more sense. But it's not super easy to read on first pass.
Whatever the case, if you're a fan of Science Fiction (mixed with Horror) tabletop RPGs, you should definitely check out Mothership and its supplements.
I'm not totally sold on Mothership, though I haven't had a chance to play it yet. Still, even if it doesn't end up being a go-to game for me, there are so many great idea factories and toolkits that have come out of it.
This "megadungeon" is full of great ideas to mine. A mad A.I., corrupt corporations, horrible experiments, multiple factions. Some great stuff.
I get what they were going with when it comes to the map design...but I don't know how user friendly it's actually going to be. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe if I started running it, the map would make more sense. But it's not super easy to read on first pass.
Whatever the case, if you're a fan of Science Fiction (mixed with Horror) tabletop RPGs, you should definitely check out Mothership and its supplements.
December 14, 2024
Beautifully designed book full of creative horrors in a largely pitch black zero G AI run megadungeon. Mothership is great. The style on this book is fantastic, and the commitment to their being absolutely no comfortable spaces here makes it stand out from even the grim standard of most Mothership stuff. Similar to pound of flesh, I'd have to run it to get a sense of it's a 4 or 5, but from a first read I feel like there are still a few confusions over what the purpose of some ship sections are from a player perspective (Skelton works?) and id appreciate some tables for creating interesting tables. I'm nitpicking though, as the search and artifact tables are two of the best random creators I've seen, and where the purpose/"idea" of a floor is clear (Hel, Pseudoflesh farms etc) the whole thing just sings.
January 28, 2022
A gorgeous and terrifying horror sci-fi campaign setting for the Mothership TTRPG, based in an android factory run by a rogue AI. The AI has figured out how to make androids that are perfectly indistinguishable from humans . . .
I especially like the new stress-like mechanic, the Bends, which reflects how much your character believes they may no longer be their original human self, but instead an android replacement created in the factory, implanted with all their original memories. After all, how would you know...?
I especially like the new stress-like mechanic, the Bends, which reflects how much your character believes they may no longer be their original human self, but instead an android replacement created in the factory, implanted with all their original memories. After all, how would you know...?
June 25, 2025
A brilliant super dungeon with a fantastic premise and brilliant theming with lots of diving references. I know this is true for every mothership module but the art and design in this is fantastic. Not only is it cool and creepy it’s incredibly functional, with the background colour of each page showing if the floor is illuminated or not. Absolutely inspired.
May 9, 2024
Whenever Luke Gearing writes a novel I am going to buy that novel.
June 9, 2024
Profoundly eerie, excellently-presented deep space horror megadungeon. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews