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Adrift!
Locomotive
Category Random Event
Type Random
Data ID 302363

Adrift! is a Sunless Skies Random Event.

Story description[ | ]

Freezing(AdriftRoot)

Trigger conditions[ | ]

Ruins icon Adrift ≥ 1
Location: The High Wilderness
Area: The Sky
Frequency: Always (1000%)

Interactions[ | ]

Actions Requirements Effects Notes
Scavenge your supplies
Can you find enough that is flammable to coax your boiler back to life for a few more hours?
A fruitless search
You scour every cupboard and cubby-hole, but find barely enough to feed your engine's hungry fires for more than a few minutes. Already, the cold is deepening. It takes a toll on your crew. You will have to look to more desperate measures.
Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Scavenge your supplies
But something is wrong. Has someone been at your stores? Doors have been left open, boxes lidless. Your breath mists in the air. Is it colder, here? And what are those frosty marks on the ground, like the prints of frozen feet?
A god's displeasure
You search your stores, but there isn't a flammable thing left in them which hasn't been frozen to the brittle consistency of old, bleak bone. The cold deepens, taking its toll of the crew. Shivering, wild-eyed, several of them report seeing a child on board. Clad in rags. Gaunt as twigs. Mouthless. They pray for deliverance from the Waste-Waif.
Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Make a living sacrifice to the Burrower Below
Oldest of the gods invoked by skyfarers, the Burrower Below governs the forgotten paths of the sky. She devours time, and the time that pleases her most is time that has been lived.

Game note: Sacrifice the oldest of your crew and hope to receive the Burrower's intervention.

Failed event Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Unheard
You don't give an order, of course. But you leave the room when the discussion turns in a certain direction, so that the crew can speak about what needs to be done.

You ignore the masked band that make their way to the cabins. You pay no attention to the scuffle, or the grey-haired figure dragged to the engine room. You ignore the clang of the fire-grate as it's pulled open, and the brief, frenzied screams.

Unfortunately, you are not the only one to ignore them. The Burrower's attention has moved elsewhere. There is no intervention to save you from the murderous cold.
Successful event
The offering
Masks for the supplicants. Ropes for the sacrifice. Oaths of silence for the conscience.

The oldest crewman, bound and gagged and struggling, goes into the engine-fires. He burns bright and long as a day in August. The boiler thrums. Steam billows. Ignore the screams, that persist the long hours that follow. Concentrate instead on the minutiae of daily tasks: a carefully-worded entry in the engine's log; a long, wary watch as you pass a dangerous stretch of sky, a regretful letter to the burning crewman's family, riddled with lies.

Ignore the screams and give thanks; thanks to the Burrower.
Burn bronzewood
Most bronzewood is too dense, too bronzey to burn. But less resilient fibres can be dug from the heartwood, which will burn if the fire is hot enough.

Game note: Bronzewood fibres burn quickly and hot; this will grant 2 Fuel, but put strain on your Hull.

The song of axes
Axes thud and stokers sweat until your expensive consignment of bronzewood is reduced to one pile of flammable fibres and a second, larger pile of splintered, useless wood. Once in the furnace, the bronzewood smokes reluctantly for a while, then bursts into fierce, pale flame.
Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Burn unremarkable souls
The Moloch was made by devils, and in a pinch its engines can burn souls. But will these measly specimens be sufficient?

Game note: This may provide 1 Fuel.

Failed event
The devourer of souls
You engine is ravenous! It gobbles up every soul you feed it, but these meagre examples only wail and flash into insubstantial vapours. They lack the character or complexity to generate sustained heat. All too soon, they are gone. At least their temporary warmth spared the crew from the worst effects of the cold, for a while.
Successful event
Ghosts in the machine
You tease the souls from their glass and into the engine's fire-hole, where they pop and leap like chestnuts in the pan. Fresh clouds of steam, laced with coiling luminescence, billow from the chimney. Your crew hurry about their tasks, perhaps worrying whether, in times of desperation, you might come for their souls.
Burn fine souls
The infernal engineers who built the Moloch installed an engine capable of running on souls of sufficient quality. These impeccable specimens should be just the ticket.

Game note: This will always provide 2 Fuel.

Cheery as Christmas Eve
How merrily they burn! The main cylinder purrs like a contented cat. Pistons pump. Your engine surges forward. Cozy warmth permeates the cabins. In the engine room, the engineers remove their shoes and socks, and wriggle their toes before the cherry-red glow of the fire-grate.
Burn Ministry-Approved Literature
You have crates of the stuff! But will it burn hotly enough or long enough?

Game note: This may grant 1 Fuel, but it will damage your reputation with London.

Failed event
In a flash of flame
How the hungry fires roar! Pamphlet after pamphlet; volume after volume, are gobbled to ash. It's no good. The paper is too slight to get the boiler to temperature. The best you can manage is to allow the crew to assemble in the engine room, to enjoy the last of the heat before the cold returns.
Successful event
Into the fire
Your stokers eke the literature out, placing it in the firebox in tightly-bundled packages. Pages curl. Spines blacken. The finest words the Ministry will permit are swallowed by licking flames. It won't last long. You hope it will be enough.
Inscribe a Searing Enigma upon your regulator valve
A glyph in the language of suns! The very soul of fire! Your engineer strenuously objects, but their commitment to science has always been disappointingly tenuous.

Game note: This will always give 3 Fuel, but has alarming consequences. Success may ameliorate them. A little.

Failed event Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Volleyed and thundered
The sigil rings like an angry bell, flinging you from your feet. Your locomotive bucks and surges. Its fires ignite with a whump. Pistons pump madly. The cylinder bulges under the pressure. Bolts ping from your plating like bullets, and a rent tears itself in your hull. The wind reaches in, plucking out some of your crew. Your locomotive's whistle screams, in pain or ecstasy. The engine lurches forward, and soon you are entirely occupied with the business of keeping it from tearing itself apart.
Successful event
A beast of the heavens
The sigil blazes, savage as the blood of stars! Your engines rage! Your cylinder resounds with thunder! Pistons shriek, frantically trying to keep up with the sudden pressure. Pipes crack, filling the corridors with foggy steam. A tank ruptures; crew scream. A stoker laughs, wildly, and his tongue is a licking flame. Your locomotive thunders through the skies, a unstoppable leviathan!
Signal for help
It is a desperate hope: the heavens are vast.

Game note: Perhaps help will come. Perhaps it won't. Perhaps something will come that you wish had not.

Failed event Advanced query needs investigation
Forsaken
Your signaller deploys every trick they know. Flares, burning briefly bright. Flags flickering in the celestial winds. An S.O.S. played shrilly on the whistle. Frantic Morse code, stuttered into the night from your headlights. The skies are silent. No one comes. The cold grows ever worse.
Rare failed event (33%)
A cri de coeur
Your signaller deploys every trick they know. Flares, burning briefly bright. Flags flickering in the celestial winds. An S.O.S. played shrilly on the whistle. Frantic Morse code, stuttered into the night from your headlights. Will anyone respond in time?
Triggers event: Smokinggun A Hostile Engine Intercepted your Signal

Successful event
A cri de coeur
Your signaller deploys every trick they know. Flares, burning briefly bright. Flags flickering in the celestial winds. An S.O.S. played shrilly on the whistle. Frantic Morse code, stuttered into the night from your headlights. Will anyone respond in time?
Partial success event (5%)
A cri de coeur
Your signaller deploys every trick they know. Flares, burning briefly bright. Flags flickering in the celestial winds. An S.O.S. played shrilly on the whistle. Frantic Morse code, stuttered into the night from your headlights. Will anyone respond in time?
Repel your attacker
An enemy is nearby. You can't signal for help until they're gone. Drive them off with shot and shell!

Game note: Success will give you a chance to signal for help. Having more crew improves your odds.

Failed event

Advanced query needs investigation

Special is calculated as follows: (Visitor: The Reach*2)+(Visitor: Albion*3)+(Visitor: Eleutheria*5)+(Visitor: The Blue Kingdom*5)-(Crew) * 1.67

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Blood in the water
Your enemy returns your aggression. The hull shudders, cracks. Screams, as shrapnel perforates a group of your crew. Your enemy loops for another pass. They have not given up.
Successful event
Still kicking
A volley from your main guns! A fusillade of small arms fire from every hatch and window! You take a number of casualties in the desperate engagement, but your foe retreats. For now.
Evade your attacker
An enemy is close, preventing you from signalling for help. Perhaps you can evade them. Turn off your lights. Hush your crew. Hide.

Game note: Success will give you a chance to signal for help.

Failed event

Special is calculated as follows: (Visitor: The Reach*2)+(Visitor: Albion*3)+(Visitor: Eleutheria*5)+(Visitor: The Blue Kingdom*5) * 1.67


Advanced query needs investigation Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.

Advanced alteration value probably needs examination.


Pursued
You plunge your engine into darkness, trusting the mists to conceal you. But your enemy is not fooled. Your locomotive shudders under its attack; crew scream.
Successful event
Concealed
You quench your lights and lamps, abandoning yourself to the dark. The cold bites, murderous. Your enemy passes by. It has not gone far, but far enough that you might be able to signal, carefully, for help.
Freeze to death
You have no strength left to fight off the cold.

Game note: This captain has met their end.

A shivering death
There are a thousand deaths in the sky. This one is cold and slow. For a long time pain ravaged you, but it is gone, now. Your flesh feels like a glove: heavy, flopping, numb. Your thoughts die, one by one.
Give up
Abandon hope. Let the cold have you.

Game note: This captain will die.

Unexpected company
Your engine is silent. You're the last one left, you think. The last crewman stopped raving hours ago. Actually, perhaps that final sobbing, laughing voice was yours. You have seen impossible things while you died. An April field sprouting across the bridge, bright with bluebells. People from your past, who kept you company as you froze. Now you see something else. A child. Frostbitten, hairless, wearing rags. It has no mouth. It reaches out, to close your eyes. How cold its fingers are! Colder than the frost that mantles you. Colder than your heart, now silent and still.

Links[ | ]

Links In[ | ]

Smokinggun A Hostile Engine Intercepted your Signal, Locomotive An Opportunistic Engine Answers your Signal

Links Out[ | ]

Smokinggun A Hostile Engine Intercepted your Signal, Hull Your Signal was Intercepted by a Friendly Engine, Locomotive An Opportunistic Engine Answers your Signal


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