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.

Check out the SUBTLE FLUID campaign on Kickstarter! 

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.

Wetan Factor level 1

Rankstillfleeter minima factor, subclass commissioned −A prime

You are a tough matchmaker from Kakudun. You were trained as a Co. merchant-marine officer. Your job is to lead the team to complete the venture as contracted, and to represent the Co. in establishing new strategic relationships, including trade deals.

LanguagesSpin, Rasp, and Malteni

ScoresCOM d10+1
MOV d6+1
REA d6
WIL d8
CHA d12
HEA 18 [maxCOM+maxMOV]
GRT 14 [maxREA+maxWIL]
DR 3 [gear]

Powers

Species

• Arthropod (permanent) – You gain a permanent bonus of +1 MOV. [already included]


• Big spiky hard-shelled bug (permanent) – You gain a permanent bonus of +1 COM.[already included]


• Mandibles, spiracles, etc. (permanent) – You can metabolize a much greater range of chemicals than hominins, only a few of which are cognizable to humans as “food.” You thus spend less on equipage during venture outlay (you just carry around some rotting fungusbark and human-urine energy shots). You effectively make back an extra 25 voidguilders with each venture. (Standard venture pay is your level × 25.) This power doesn’t help at game start.

Class

• Command (standard) – Burn 5 GRT and give a non-suicidal command to someone who understands you; that person must act upon the command. This is not a Weird power, however, and thus can be overruled by the hell science. Bonus item: because you are a boss, you start the game with an additional 25 voidguilders [already included].


• Bark (free) – Shout a quick suggestion to aid a companion: burn X GRT, max your level +1; someone else receives +X to her next roll. This can stack with boost.


• Feed (hour) – When not under direct threat, you pass around the beetle jerky and booze for a while. Burn 6 GRT: you and each person with you regains +dCHA (your CHA) +your level in pool, to be distributed between GRT and HEA however they like. Note, this takes one hour—not five, like normal resting.


• Sting (free) – Your training in combat tactics allows how to pierce the thickest of armor. Burn 2X GRT: your next successful attack ignores X DR. This power works even against extradimensional armor but is not itself extradimensional.

Gear

Weapons

• Bolas (1 clank) – d2 damage. 15-M range. If your target fails to hit, she must make another MOV check against 6 or trip and fall prone. 1 gl.


• 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.

Armor

• Witchsuit, void elf (slightly broken) (2 nano) – DR 3. Converts HEA damage into GRT damage until you reach 0 GRT. Every time you take damage, roll a d4: on a 1, your suit signals Tnín, and 6d6 void elves come looking for you within 6d6 rounds. They are eager to play games with yours organs. 111 gl.

Other

• Breather (3 clank) – Breathers allow you to breathe tainted atmo. 15 gl.


• Thinkyboost, 3 pills (2 bio) – Manufactured by the Archive, these very popular and highly addictive pep pills allow you to recover d4 GRT per dose. You can use dWIL doses per day safely (roll each day); if you have one dose more, you go insane for 10 -dWIL days, minimum 1. Thinkyboost’s withdrawal symptoms and duration are similar to those of gunch. 30 gl. (10 gl/pill)


• Oddment – 4 large scented candles (“Anchspice” flavor).

Voidguilders (gl) remaining: 19

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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…

Check out the SUBTLE FLUID campaign on Kickstarter! 

Support the development of this game on Patreon >

Check out the official Quickstart Rules, including eight pregenerated characters! >

Buy Wayfarers, the rules for designing characters, on Itch! 6 classes, 12 species, 3 background rules, weapons, armor—mayhem!

We’re currently working on modules, starter ventures, and Roll20 integration. Sign up to be notified when we release new content >

Join our community, chat with game designers, and learn about open playtests by joining our Discord server >

Listen to actual gameplay on the amazing RPG podcast Fun City >

More resources

☉Check out the random 1st-level character generator below!

☉If you are making your own Stillfleet character, here is a spreadsheet-based character sheet >

☉And here is a draft PDF character sheet >

☉This post explains more about the game >

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.