We are excited to announce a Zinequest 3 ambush in the form of a zine about nanotech AKA the Blood…
SUBTLE FLUID will combine all of the rules on the blooder class, the nanofluidics advanced powers, and nanotech items along with new art, lore, and world-building details. In addition, we’ll be doubling the nanofluidics powers, greatly expanding the options for the blood class. Plus, for the first time, we’re offering a print option through DriveThruRPG.
Note, we are also opening up content direction from backers: we hope to offer a few mini-ventures drenched in self-assembling mayhem… And we’re excited to be able to offer a nanotechnology theme song from Music d20! I mean, how often do whole strata of technological evolution get theme songs? Not often enough!
Thanks to everyone who has played the game and helped us develop it from homebrew idea/rambling science fiction into a visualized world. (Now with new logo!) We truly appreciate you.
Reloading this page will generate a new, random, playable 1st-level character. Note, this is a working draft: if you see something wacky, please feel free to reach out on Discord and let us know.
Provincial (Carlivane) Snakehead level 1
Rankstillfleeter minima nonfactor, subclass leerling −A prime
You are a slouching Directorate intern from Carlivago. You are a self-taught hell scientist—somehow capable of touching the Weird without the careful manipulations of the Archivists. Quite possibly, you were granted your powers by an ultrasapient patron of some kind—a cthulhicate entity from the deep void, an unearthed and insane Late Tephnian warmachine, or an utterly unfathomable extradimensional being from the Escheresque.
LanguagesSpin
ScoresCOM d6 MOV d12 REA d8 WIL d6+1 CHA d10+1 HEA 18 [maxCOM+maxMOV] GRT 18 [maxWIL+maxCHA] DR 0 [no armor]
Powers
Species
Carlivago (homeworld) – Known for housing the Archive’s pharmacy guild, the “World–City” of Carlivago stands in a cool swamp on an otherwise lifeless planet. The Carlivane are paranoid that their city will be conquered by the mi-go; they view all visitors as potential spies. You speak Spin. You start the game with stimtenyl strips that heal d4 HEA each and one stolen mi-go oddment (a mystery) [already included].
Different gravity back home (permanent) – You gain a +1 bonus to all non-Weird rolls related to health—resisting disease, fighting poison, not falling asleep when you don’t want to, etc. This does not help with resisting Weird forms of mind control.
Gladhander, palmgreaser, climber (permanent) – You gain a permanent bonus of +1 CHA. [already included]
Subject of empire (permanent) – You gain a permanent bonus of +1 WIL. [already included]
Class
Evoke (special/free) – Hell science is the evolution of consciousness—the merger of the human imagination with physical reality. Hell scientists use their imaginations to sculpt timespace. Thanks to some terrible mutation, you can control the Weird. You can use hell science powers that you don’t even know about. Instead of using a Weird power you actually understand (that is, using the power channel hell science, below), name the power you want to use. Then, as a free action, burn d20 GRT and make a WIL check. If you succeed, you may use the power as described, paying the associated GRT cost. Also, your eyes glow, your breath mists with electrified blood, and so forth. If you fail, you don’t lose your action for the round (trying is a free action), but you do lose the d20 GRT. Note: using a power once does not teach you how to safely do so again!
Call patron (free) – You supplicate to your always-watching patron: make a standard CHA check. If you succeed, you get the attention of whatever ultrasapient grants you your ability to manipulate reality on a quantum scale, and it takes hold of you, taunting the pitiful beings around you to react. If anyone attacks you for the next your-level rounds, they suffer d30 +your-level damage as a warmachine strafes them with micro-railgun drones, or a cthulhicate lashes at them with tentacles of purple hate, etc. After you call your patron (that is, after the power ends), you must sacrifice d20 GRT to it or else fall to 0 HEA, prone, as it sucks out the juiciest parts of you as punishment.
Channel hell science (varies, typically standard) – You begin play with 2 hell science powers, chosen freely from any of the 6 paths [already included]. Each time you gain a level, you can gain 1 more hell science power. Almost all hell science powers cost GRT to use. The psyonic equivalent of COM is REA, unless otherwise stated. When you psychically attack someone, your opponent rolls WIL instead of MOV to resist (to mentally “dodge”). N.B., most people tend to be very suspicious of other people who can bend timespace simply by thinking.
Surge (special/free) – You can use hell science powers in ways that defy the understanding of even the most erudite Senior Archivists: when using a hell science power, burn the requisite GRT +X more GRT, where X is equal to or less than your level × 3. The effect of the power is now +X, whether that applies to damage, damage reduction, duration in minutes or hours, or any other measurable effect. If the effect is not measurable, it is qualitatively amplified a ginormous amount. X minutes after using the power, you feel weak and cannot use any Weird power for X rounds. During this time, you smell sweaty and can’t speak eloquently.
Hell Science
Buffer (free) – Burn 2X GRT: you create a cloak of bioelectric energy that shows down incoming attacks of all kinds, giving you damage reduction X for X rounds.
Read ahead (standard) – Burn 4 GRT: you see what will happen to you along one general line of possibility—one story—within the next 24 hours. You don’t get specific details, but the GM must be honest and helpful.
Flaw
The Blood Legion of Saspar (the paranoid, autocratic, medieval successor state to the Late Tephnians) is searching for you: the vile Empress herself believes your blood honors the evolutionary legacy of the rulers of Great Tephnii. Naturally, you should be honored to donate your body to her Blood Cathedral in Sasparada.
Gear
Weapons
Musket. 5–.9-caliber, smoothbore (3 clank) – 2d10 damage. 80-M range. After you have attacked once, you must spend one round reloading. Two-handed. Doubles as a club. 50 gl.
Trident (1 clank) – d4 damage. 1 gl.
Armor
None – No damage reduction (DR).
Other
Bicycle (2 clank) – Velocipedes are beloved by everyone in the future, obviously. 50 gl.
Environment suit (envirosuit), standard (5 clank) – Allows for 12 hours of vacuum travel. Standard envirosuits are punctured whenever you take damage and must be patched. Repair kits come with the suit. Repairs take 1 round and require a normal (6) REA check. 40 gl.
Some shit you’ve found, potentially useful – Shrunken heads of two humans, rollerblades, fancy razor blades (matched pair, d3 damage), toothpicks. 5 gl.
Stimtenyl, 5 strips (2 bio) – These non-addictive strips heal d4 HEA each. 75 gl. (15 gl/strip)
Stolen mi-go oddity – a mystery. No value
Wetgill (3 clank) – Wetgills allow dryair sapes to breathe beneath the waves. 30 gl.
Oddment – Comic book about a wacky office-supply store (probably indecipherable).
Stillfleet is a grimdark, politically charged tabletop roleplaying game (RPG) set in space, far into the ruinous future. Spaceships are just dungeons, hanging in the dark…
Stillfleet is a tabletop roleplaying game (RPG) about exploring ruined spacecraft—“hulks”—as well as habitable earth-like planets long-ago colonized by terrans but then cut off from contact with the greater galaxy for decades or centuries—“rocks.”
Thus Stillfleet is really two different games, one hulkside—a series of grimdark explorations of advanced technical structures, hanging in the void—and the other rockside—a political game about managing a company distributed across space.
Players take the roles of various explorers working as part of the Worshipful Company of Stillfleeters, more often known simply as “the Company,” abbreviated the Co. Theoretically, the players are working together… In practice, this is not always the case.
The term “stillfleet” comes from the fact that many planets were once colonized by humans, and that most of these planets (or all of them?) are orbited even today by massive, “dead” ships. However advanced, these ships never work as originally designed.
Their tachyon drives are unpowered, their dimension mills broken. To reach them, fleeters use not other ships but the timespace gates called stiffworks.
