Adventure Zero · Tales of Mar de Oro

The San Telmo Incident

A signal fails at an inland estate, an engineer disappears, and several authorities converge on a cordon where the official account does not match the evidence.

Full web edition. Runnable from this page without the PDF. GM sections contain spoilers and are folded.

Player PacketDownload the PDF Quickstart

Read First

Quick Facts

Players
4–6 players and one GM
Length
3–5 hours, one session
System
System-neutral, with an optional 2d6 bridge
Crew
Six ready-to-play characters
Setting
San Telmo estate, inland from Boca Serena, Canula Prime
Series
Adventure Zero; continues into Ash on the Ledger
Needs
No account. Trackers and the record save only in this browser.
Also available
Downloadable 43-page PDF Quickstart

For a shorter session, begin at the estate gate and combine Scenes 2 and 3. For two sessions, let the crew investigate Boca Serena before travelling inland.

Table provenance

This adventure was played in the original Mar de Oro campaign, then revised for publication and web play.

Package

Player PacketPrimer, six pregens, bonds, rules bridge. Spoiler-safe.Printable Player KitPregens, bonds, rules, and both handouts in one print run.GM Quick ReferenceOne printable sheet for the table. GM only.Adventure RecordRecord the five ending facts and carry them forward.GM MapEstate, concealed shaft, and chamber. GM only.PDF QuickstartThe same adventure as a 43-page download.

New to Mar de Oro?

Mar de Oro is a chain of colonial islands at the warm centre of a larger world, where the Old Crownlands' courts, churches, and counting houses meet free ports, plantation economies, and discoveries no institution fully understands. Airships rise on Éterlumin, a responsive gas that must be calibrated, and old chambers answer patterns that modern science can barely describe.

You do not need to know anything else to run this adventure. The Player Packet gives players everything they need, including a short primer. For more, see Start here.

How this adventure plays

San Telmo is not a mystery with one correct route through it. The crew enters a situation that is already moving: workers are hurt, an engineer is missing, records have been altered, and several authorities are preparing to take control. Investigation gives the crew information and options, but information also creates pressure.

Situation, not plot. Essential facts appear through several routes. If one route is missed, move the information somewhere else at a different cost.

Factions are not teams. A faction can help in one scene and obstruct in the next without becoming inconsistent. Run each group according to what it wants, what it fears, and what it believes is happening.

Make pressure visible. Clocks are not hidden punishments. Show the approach of trouble in the fiction: more uniforms arrive, access narrows, witnesses are separated, instruments disagree, pressure rises.

Do not score the ending. There is no neutral handoff and no single victory condition. Record what became true.

PRESSURE, INVESTIGATION, FACTION REACTION, CHOICE, CONSEQUENCE

Players can walk away

The characters are not required to pursue this adventure. If they abandon it, let the factions, clocks, and unattended situation continue according to the fiction, record what changes, and follow what the players choose instead. A clock advances only when its established fictional trigger occurs. See When the Players Walk Away.

What the players know

San Telmo's scheduled calibration signal has failed. A wagon of injured workers is stopped on the road. Estate officials call it a controlled industrial accident. Emilio Resa, the engineer who reported abnormal Source-zone behaviour, is missing. The crew arrives to investigate, locate Resa, prevent escalation, and decide what happens to the truth.

The crew reaches the San Telmo road at late afternoon. A wagon carrying injured workers has been stopped by a crown patrol. The estate signal has failed twice. Smoke rises from the laboratory yard, but the plantation house displays a white flag of controlled emergency.

GM truth

Folded to protect players reading over your shoulder.

GMWhat San Telmo is

San Telmo is a privately chartered Valdegracian cane estate with a Crown-funded laboratory and calibration facility. The Crown Office funds and regulates the technical work but does not own the estate. Most of San Telmo is ordinary agricultural and refinery infrastructure. Its resident workforce includes wage and contract workers, and several families have lived in estate housing for generations.

The laboratory has also been testing modern Éterlumin equipment against an older structure discovered beneath the estate. The people above understand it as an experimental site. They do not understand what the structure below actually is.

GMWhat actually happened, and what it is not
  • Estate records were altered and a concealed shaft was reopened.
  • Emilio Resa entered the chamber to stop a second calibration pulse.
  • San Telmo is a worked Source chamber serving as a listening and maintenance access point.
  • It is connected through older field geometry to the true inland Source, but it is not the full Source complex.
  • Modern calibration housings forced it to reconcile incompatible reference signals.
  • No faction fully understands the complete system.

What it is not

  • Not a crystal deposit
  • Not naturally poisonous gas
  • Not a simple machine that can be owned safely
  • Not proof that one faith or nation has the complete explanation
  • Not a monster encounter that requires killing something
GMThe incident in plain language and the responsibility chain
  • Modern equipment was connected to the older chamber.
  • A first controlled calibration pulse produced a response.
  • The Crown Office demanded a repeatable result.
  • A second pulse used a different housing and calibrated Éterlumin batch.
  • The two patterns conflicted. Pressure rose, workers were injured, and Resa went below to isolate the second housing.
PartyResponsibility
Crown OfficeDemanded the repeat test.
Estate foremanAuthorised it under political pressure.
ResaObjected once the readings became contradictory and went below to stop escalation.
HellerOne installed housing is Heller-made.
AlbionThe second is an unmarked Albion-pattern copy. Wren's cell did not supply it or order the test.
CalderónResponds as Crown commander; he did not order the experiment.

Before play

Ten minutes of prep is enough.

  1. Agree lines and veils and a pause tool (see Table safety).
  2. Hand out four to six pregens from the Player Packet.
  3. Have the players choose two crew bonds and one public mandate: Official inspection, Medical relief, Technical assistance, Private rescue, Recovery of missing records.
  4. Set Chamber Answers to 2/6 and Authority Seizes Site to 1/4.
  5. Open the two player handouts in another tab or print them.
  6. Read the GM truth, then the five scene nodes. Keep the GM Quick Reference beside you.

Ready-to-play crew

The six pregens below are the same ones in the Player Packet. Tomás carries the Crown writ; each character has an independent reason to reach the estate.

Ready character 1 · Systems, calibration, repair

Greta Valen

Heller engineer

Repair what can be repaired. Name what cannot.

Public background

You were trained in Valldeila's naval workshops and sent to Canula Prime because you can read a failing lift assembly by sound. Emilio Resa once published a correction that kept your career from ending with another person's mistake.

Three strengths

  • Field calibration and pressure systems
  • Rapid repair under dangerous conditions
  • Technical authority with crews and workshops

Burden

You approved a shortcut during a rushed refit. An apprentice survived, but not unchanged. You now hesitate when speed and safety become enemies.

Bond

You owe Resa for defending the truth when procedure preferred a scapegoat.

Why you stay

You believe the San Telmo readings could prove that Heller engineers are not responsible for the failure. You also know proof can become a weapon.

Personal question

When does professional loyalty become complicity?

Equipment: Tool roll, calibration key, pressure goggles, work coat, pistol, notebook, two sealed gauges.

Suggestions: 5e Artificer; PF1e Alchemist; PF2e Inventor or Alchemist; FitD Leech.

At the table: Ask what the machine is doing before asking how to stop it.

One thing you know: The signal failure does not match ordinary lift equipment damage.

Ready character 2 · Command, law, firearms

Tomás Aranda

Valdegracian officer

Authority is meaningful only when someone accepts responsibility for it.

Public background

You serve the crown in Canula Prime and have been given temporary command of the inspection party. Your papers open gates. A sealed secondary order authorises seizure of any strategic device recovered below San Telmo.

Three strengths

  • Command, discipline, and controlled violence
  • Protocol, jurisdiction, and military access
  • Firearms, defence, and reading a chain of command

Burden

You have carried out lawful orders that later proved convenient rather than just. You still believe institutions can be better than the people hiding inside them.

Bond

The crew is under your protection once you accept command.

Why you stay

You need to prove that authority can mean responsibility rather than ownership.

Personal question

Will you obey the sealed order after learning why it was written?

Equipment: Officer's coat, sabre, pistol, field glass, emergency writ, signal whistle, sealed order.

Suggestions: 5e Fighter; PF1e Fighter or Cavalier; PF2e Fighter with Marshal flavour; FitD Cutter.

At the table: State what your authority can do, then decide whether using it will help.

One thing you know: The quarantine order was signed before the reported accident.

Ready character 3 · Leverage, contacts, documents

Marisol Venn

Free-port broker

Every document has an owner. Every owner has a fear.

Public background

You were raised between docks, counting rooms, and crews that spoke several languages badly and understood one another perfectly. You recognise the San Telmo shipment code as part of an exempt route you once used for Stroomdijk cargo.

Three strengths

  • Contacts, bargains, and reading motives
  • Documents, seals, ledgers, and commercial routes
  • Creating options where official procedure offers none

Burden

You carried a sealed cargo without asking what was inside. People disappeared at the destination. You have never learned whether your work helped cause it.

Bond

Luz Varela once hid your younger brother from a violent debt collector.

Why you stay

You owe the workers more than money, and you know the difference.

Personal question

What truth are you still tempted to trade?

Equipment: Ledger book, seal kit, concealed purse, small pistol, dock contacts, copy of an exemption clause.

Suggestions: 5e Rogue; PF1e Rogue or Investigator; PF2e Investigator or Rogue; FitD Slide or Spider.

At the table: Find out who benefits from the current explanation.

One thing you know: The shipment code belongs to an exempt route used by Stroomdijk carriers.

Ready character 4 · Terrain, tracking, local trust

Ivo Soria

Frontier guide

A road is a promise made by whoever expects to use it.

Public background

You are colonial-born and know the inland tracks around San Telmo better than the officials who claim the land. Workers came to you after the first signal failure. You promised not to bring soldiers along the hidden drainage route.

Three strengths

  • Tracking, terrain, weather, and quiet movement
  • Local relationships and reading fear
  • Finding routes that maps and officials ignore

Burden

You once guided a survey team to a place local families asked you to avoid. The survey became a claim, and the claim became armed possession.

Bond

Ordinary people are not evidence to be collected and handed over.

Why you stay

You stay because the estate families will face the consequences after every foreign expert leaves.

Personal question

Can you keep your promise when the crew needs the route?

Equipment: Long gun, machete, field cord, water skin, medical herbs, route sketch, worker token.

Suggestions: 5e Ranger; PF1e Ranger; PF2e Ranger; FitD Hound.

At the table: Ask who uses a path, who watches it, and what entering it declares.

One thing you know: Workers use an older drainage track that bypasses the main gate.

Ready character 5 · Archives, inquiry, authority

Sister Ana Cordero

Solarian investigator

Truth is sacred even when the institution fears its shape.

Public background

You serve a reform-minded office of the Solarian Church and have authority to gather testimony, inspect records, and establish whether a site requires quarantine. Your superior sent a preliminary quarantine classification before you had seen the evidence.

Three strengths

  • Archives, ritual knowledge, and formal inquiry
  • Interviewing witnesses without surrendering authority
  • Recognising when doctrine is being used to hide procedure

Burden

You protected an earlier inquiry by sealing it. The witnesses survived, but the institution learned nothing and repeated the same mistake elsewhere.

Bond

Conscience is not disobedience simply because procedure arrives first.

Why you stay

You remain to keep frightened people from being classified out of their own story.

Personal question

Can your faith survive an answer your office cannot name?

Equipment: Codex, inquiry seal, lamp, medical stole, pistol, archive satchel, blank testimony forms.

Suggestions: 5e Cleric or Investigator-style Rogue; PF1e Cleric or Inquisitor; PF2e Cleric or Investigator; FitD Whisper or Spider.

At the table: Ask what the rite protects, and who benefits from calling something forbidden.

One thing you know: Church offices opened an inquiry before receiving a formal report.

Ready character 6 · Medicine, composure, evidence

Dr. Nadia Volenka

Shipboard surgeon

A witness in your care is a patient, not property.

Public background

You served aboard merchant and naval vessels before taking work in the Golden Sea. The injured workers show pressure burns, tremor, and disorientation. Their lungs are clear. Someone is calling it poison because poison is easier to quarantine than a responsive system.

Three strengths

  • Medicine, triage, and controlled emergency care
  • Observation, anatomy, and distinguishing cause from story
  • Composure when other people need permission to panic

Burden

You treated an earlier resonance injury and concealed one persistent symptom to keep the patient out of Church custody.

Bond

No wounded person becomes evidence while under your care.

Why you stay

You stay because Resa may be alive and because the official diagnosis is being written before the examination.

Personal question

What will you conceal to protect a patient, and who pays for that silence?

Equipment: Surgical roll, medicines, respirator cloth, lantern, pistol, pressure-burn salve, patient tags.

Suggestions: 5e medicine-focused Rogue or Cleric; PF1e Investigator or Alchemist; PF2e Investigator with Medic; FitD Leech.

At the table: Describe symptoms precisely. Refuse explanations that do not fit the body.

One thing you know: The injured show pressure and resonance trauma, not poisoning.

Crew bonds: choose two

  • One of you saved another during a failed crossing.
  • Two of you know the same official is lying, but for different reasons.
  • A worker at San Telmo helped your crew before the adventure began.
  • You share custody of a document that could embarrass a powerful office.
  • One character has authority; another knows why using it openly would be dangerous.

GM at a glance

Adventure objectives

  • Determine what happened
  • Protect or locate witnesses
  • Find Emilio Resa
  • Prevent uncontrolled escalation
  • Decide custody, proof, access, and public account

Five-scene pressure spine

  1. Arrival Under Authority
  2. The Missing Account
  3. The Estate Below
  4. The Chamber Answers
  5. Who Controls the Truth?

Scenes are pressures, not a required sequence

The crew may bypass, combine, reverse, or never visit some of them. If they reach the estate below before investigating the office, move relevant evidence and faction reactions forward. If they expose the incident before entering the chamber, bring the custody conflict forward. When they reach the chamber, let it answer. Preserve the situation, not the sequence.

GMWhen play stalls

Optional pressure moves, not scheduled events. Use one when the table loses momentum. Advance a clock only if one of its existing triggers actually occurs.

  • Luz brings an injured worker, or testimony the authorities are trying to contain.
  • The patrol tightens access or separates a witness, making Authority Seizes Site visible.
  • The chamber knocks or repeats a rhythm, making the technical pressure immediate without adding a new clue.
  • Elias Wren offers a useful document or copied fragment in exchange for a private promise.
  • Sister Verena, or another authority already present, invokes quarantine or procedure, forcing a concrete choice about custody or access.

Cast

Emilio Resa

Engineer trapped inside the chamber.

Wants enough time to isolate the second housing, preserve proof, and leave alive. Fears being blamed for an experiment he tried to stop.

Luz Varela

Workers' representative.

Wants injured people treated, missing kin found, and the official story prevented from erasing them.

Admiral Esteban Calderón

Crown commander. Did not order the experiment.

Wants custody, containment, and a clean chain of authority. Fears Canula Prime becoming a foreign battlefield.

Elias Wren

Albion operative posing as a commercial surveyor.

Wants copied readings and technical fragments without open confrontation.

Sister Verena Solis

Solarian examiner.

Wants quarantine and classification. Fears a public event that no approved doctrine can explain.

Joren Falk

Heller envoy.

Wants witnesses and proof protected while preventing Heller from becoming Valdegracia's scapegoat.

Factions in motion

FactionWantsFearsFirst move
Valdegracian authorityJurisdiction, custody, controlled reportForeign possession and public disorderCordon the estate and seize documents
Heller representativesTruth, witnesses, technical survivalBeing blamed for a public ruptureProtect people and copy proof quietly
Albion Bureau cellLeverage and technical fragmentsOpen war before advantage is securedApproach a character through a false ally
Solarian officesClassification authority and moral controlAn event doctrine cannot containOrder quarantine, inquiry, and silence
Workers and familiesSafety, wages, missing kin, no more experimentsErasure from the official accountBring testimony, hide witnesses, sabotage access

Relationship moves

  • Protect a witness: a faction offers a better witness in exchange for silence.
  • Accuse an official publicly: someone lower in the chain disappears before testifying.
  • Trust a document: the seal is real, but the authority behind it is contested.
  • Repair the chamber: the faction that funded the damage claims ownership of the repair.

Useful places

  • The San Telmo road: the patrol cordon, the injured wagon, the patrol desk, and the road verge.
  • The estate gate and plantation house, flying the white flag of controlled emergency.
  • The office, workers' quarters, medical room, and laboratory yard.
  • The maintenance galleries, valve room, and pressure line below the estate.
  • The chamber, and the drainage tunnel that leads out of it.

Each location's clues and outcomes are in the scene nodes.

Reference

Player Materials

Player-safe pages. Hand out when the crew finds each item.

Damaged Shipment ManifestWith the Emergency Quarantine Order. Scene 1 or 2.Witness Statement and Calibration NoteLuz Varela's statement and Resa's note. Scene 2 or 3.Player PacketPrimer, pregens, bonds, and rules.Printable Player KitEverything players may see, in one print run.

Reference map

GM only. It shows the concealed shaft and the chamber. Do not include it in player handouts.

GM onlySpoiler map · do not show players

San Telmo GM Map

Estate approach, concealed shaft, and the chamber complex below.

GM map of the San Telmo estate: approach road, estate buildings, concealed shaft, and the chamber complex below
Map note: "Source Cave" is the estate's name for the underground works. The chamber shown here is an old access structure connected to the deeper inland Source. It is not the Source itself.

Clue web

These are investigation nodes, not a sequence. Each essential fact can be discovered through several of them.

Workers

Luz, injuries, missing Resa

Office

ledger and altered manifest

Lab Yard

missing equipment and shaft

Chamber

response pattern

Hospital

pressure trauma and erased name

Patrol

pre-dated quarantine order

Three-route rule

Every essential fact appears through several routes.

Resa went below

  1. Luz's testimony
  2. His discarded coat and note
  3. The repeated knocks from beneath the estate

Record tampering

  1. The doubled office ledger entry
  2. The altered manifest and broken seal
  3. The erased patient name

The chamber's listening behaviour

  1. Repeated knocks
  2. A rhythm echoed back to the crew
  3. Resa's calibration note

Scene nodes

Scene 1

Arrival Under Authority

Read aloud

The road to San Telmo is blocked by a wagon, six injured workers, and twelve soldiers who have formed a cordon facing the wrong direction. Beyond them, the plantation house flies a white flag. Smoke rises from the laboratory yard. No bell is sounding.

Visible problem

The patrol refuses entry without countersigned authority. The injured need treatment. Estate officials insist the situation is controlled.

Hidden pressure

The quarantine order predates the accident. Someone expected an emergency and wants the site closed before witnesses leave.

Useful places and clues

  • Injured wagon: pressure burns, no poison
  • Patrol desk: pre-dated quarantine order
  • Road verge: worker token marking the drainage track
  • Estate gate: foreman repeats a prepared explanation

Useful outcomes

  • Gain lawful entry
  • Move the injured to safety
  • Learn Resa is missing
  • Identify the older drainage route
  • Put a patrol sergeant in the crew's debt

GM moves

  • Separate the crew from a witness
  • Offer entry in exchange for surrendering weapons or documents
  • Advance Authority Seizes Site after a public confrontation
  • Let an injured worker whisper that the pipes answered
GMRead the opening clues
  • The soldiers face inward. They are containing witnesses as much as securing the road.
  • The white flag means controlled emergency, not surrender.
  • Estate procedure calls for the alarm bell during a general evacuation. It is silent because no evacuation has been ordered.
  • Tomás's emergency writ is valid inspection authority. The quarantine adds a local countersignature requirement; he can insist on entry, but doing so creates an explicit jurisdictional confrontation.

Scene 2

The Missing Account

Read aloud

Inside the estate, work continues badly. Cane carts stand where they were abandoned. The office ledger is open to a page written twice. Every person you question looks first toward the laboratory yard.

Visible problem

The crew must establish what happened and where Resa went before records, people, or equipment are moved.

Hidden pressure

The estate is not merely covering an accident. It is trying to preserve a repeatable result and decide which authority owns it.

Useful places and clues

  • Office: altered manifest and broken seal
  • Workers' quarters: Luz's testimony
  • Medical room: pressure trauma and erased patient name
  • Laboratory yard: missing sixth cylinder; second repeat-pulse gauge
  • Foreman's pocket: Crown Office receipt for the chamber key

Useful outcomes

  • Prove the records were altered
  • Gain worker cooperation
  • Learn the hidden shaft was reopened
  • Identify the missing cylinder
  • Discover that Valdegracian, Heller, and Albion interests all touched the equipment chain

GM moves

  • Move a witness before questioning is complete
  • Let Sister Verena demand immediate quarantine
  • Have Elias Wren offer a useful document for a private promise
  • Advance Chamber Answers when equipment is tested carelessly

Scene 3

The Estate Below

Read aloud

The shaft air is warm and dry. Brass pipework has been bolted across stone older than the plantation. Somewhere below, three knocks sound. A heartbeat later, the pipe beside you repeats them.

Visible problem

Reach Resa through maintenance galleries, locked valves, and unstable equipment without turning the chamber's response into a rupture.

Hidden pressure

The system is listening and attempting calibration. Every strong signal becomes something it may answer.

Useful places and clues

  • Maintenance gallery: Resa's discarded coat and note
  • Valve room: one housing from Heller, one unmarked Albion copy
  • Pressure line: Éterlumin moving toward the higher-pressure side
  • Stone geometry: older channels beneath modern brass
  • Drainage exit: route for evacuation or smuggling evidence

Useful outcomes

  • Establish safe venting
  • Contact Resa through repeated knocks
  • Disable the second pulse housing
  • Create an evacuation route
  • Preserve proof without carrying unstable gas

GM moves

  • Show warning before harm
  • Make loud violence advance both clocks
  • Offer a fast route that sacrifices evidence
  • Let a character's familiar rhythm be repeated by the chamber
GMGM clarification

The Heller unit is legitimate equipment. The second is an unmarked Albion-pattern copy connected to the repeat-pulse line. The pressure anomaly is not merely 'uphill' flow: Éterlumin moves toward the higher-pressure side despite the gauges showing no mechanical force that should drive it there.

Scene 4

The Chamber Answers

Read aloud

The inner door opens on a circular room of stone and brass. Éterlumin hangs as a pale distortion inside clear lines. Emilio Resa is alive behind the control frame, one hand burned and the other holding a lever in place. The chamber repeats the crew's footsteps six heartbeats late.

Visible problem

Extract Resa, stabilise or redirect the chamber, and decide how much evidence to preserve while pressure rises.

Hidden pressure

The chamber cannot reconcile two reference patterns. It is not hostile. It will keep answering the strongest signal until the contradiction is removed, isolated, or given an outlet.

Useful places and clues

  • Resa: explains the two pulses and asks for time
  • Control frame: safe vent, fast shutdown, or data preservation
  • Older stone channels: response moves through geometry, not just pipe
  • Clear line: no crystal, no toxin, calibrated gas under pressure
  • Drainage tunnel: narrow escape with limited cargo

Useful outcomes

  • Rescue Resa
  • Stabilise without surrendering all proof
  • Separate the incompatible housings
  • Record a repeatable warning pattern
  • Choose what must be abandoned

GM moves

  • Make a sound, rhythm, movement, or calibration pattern partially physical
  • Put time and independent proof in tension. Honour a credible solution that protects both.
  • Burn equipment instead of people when possible
  • At 6/6, vent pressure through the estate and change the site permanently.
GMHow the chamber answers, and Resa's lever

How the chamber answers. The chamber responds to structured patterns introduced through vibration, sound, pressure, or calibrated Fortera equipment. Under normal conditions it repeats them. Under instability it tries to reproduce them through whatever connected medium is available. The chamber does not read minds.

Resa's lever. Resa is manually holding the isolation mechanism between the two reference housings. If he releases it before one housing is disconnected or redirected, both patterns reach the chamber again and Chamber Answers advances immediately.

Examples of a physical answer. A repeated knock dents a pipe; footsteps throw dust from the floor several paces away; conflicting calibration tones make nearby objects tremble in different directions; a warning pattern forces gas through a route that should be closed.

Scene 5

Who Controls the Truth?

Read aloud

The yard has changed while you were below. New orders are moving through the estate. Workers cluster around the injured. Soldiers are repositioning. Whatever happened beneath San Telmo is already becoming an argument about who controls what comes next.

Visible problem

Leave the estate with people and proof, then decide custody, access, and the public account before the strongest claimant sets the frame.

Hidden pressure

There is no neutral handoff. Every choice protects someone, empowers someone, and leaves another danger active.

Possible claimants and offers

  • Calderón offers lawful protection in exchange for complete custody
  • Falk offers safe conduct but cannot openly defy Valdegracia
  • Wren offers copied evidence and a hidden route
  • Verena offers medical sanctuary under quarantine
  • Luz demands workers remain subjects of the story, not collateral

Useful outcomes

  • Divide evidence among incompatible holders
  • Create a third route through public copying
  • Secure Resa without surrendering access
  • Protect workers and witnesses
  • Name a public account the crew can live with

GM moves

  • Show the cost before demanding the choice
  • Do not turn the ending into a final persuasion roll
  • Let denied factions act immediately but concretely
  • Record custody, proof, access, and public authority separately
GMWhy no one can simply end the argument, and timing

Valdegracian sovereignty over San Telmo is not seriously disputed. Everything else is. The Crown claims emergency jurisdiction over the site. The Church claims authority over quarantine and protected testimony. Heller claims an interest in its equipment, personnel, and potential scapegoating. Workers and families claim protection from detention and removal. Albion has no lawful claim and therefore works through secrecy, copied evidence, and deniable agents.

The conflict is over who controls the people, evidence, equipment, and explanation before Crown authority becomes irreversible.

Timing. The competing offices were already moving before the crew reached San Telmo. Bring in only the factions whose information and previous moves justify their presence. Calderón's authority will eventually reach the estate unless actively delayed. Wren, Falk, Verena, and Luz need not all occupy the yard at once. An absent faction can act through messengers, orders, witnesses, intercepted evidence, or later consequences.

Record consequences. Do not resolve the ending with a final persuasion roll.

At the Table

Clocks & State

Chamber Answers · starts 2/6

Advance for violence, forced calibration, prolonged delay below, or incompatible signals.

At 6, pressure finds an uncontrolled outlet and physical evidence changes form.

Authority Seizes Site · starts 1/4

Advance when the crew openly challenges an authority able to enforce its claim, exposes the incident publicly, or gives another faction time to establish control.

At 4, the estate is sealed and people become property of procedure.

Table tracker · saved only in this browser

Chamber Answers
2 / 6
Authority Seizes Site
1 / 4

Nothing leaves your device. Clearing browser data clears the tracker.

Hard choice

Fast stabilisation. Accept outside technical control. The arriving authority takes Resa's notes, the control assembly, and custody of the chamber while its equipment isolates the conflicting systems.

Independent proof. Preserve evidence and give Resa time to extract himself, accepting greater instability and a harder escape.

These pressures compete. Do not invalidate a credible solution that protects both.

Chamber warning ladder

  1. Warm metal and delayed echoes
  2. Flow contradicts pressure readings
  3. The chamber repeats names or rhythms
  4. Objects tremble in conflicting patterns
  5. A repeated pattern acquires physical force
  6. Pressure finds an uncontrolled outlet

Consequences and failure

On failure, move the world. Do not erase the route forward. A failed investigation roll changes who controls a clue, how much it costs, what attention it attracts, or which clock advances. It never deletes the clue needed to continue.

If the crew refuses the expected route

Do not force them toward the chamber. If they hand the site to an authority, abandon Resa, destroy evidence, withdraw, or try to seal San Telmo from outside, resolve what that choice accomplishes and let the clocks and factions finish the event. Resa may be captured, rescued by another party, killed by escalation, or emerge later. The chamber may be contained, rupture, or pass into another faction's control. The adventure ends when the crew has made a consequential decision, not when every prepared scene has been played.

Under ordinary conditions, stabilising the immediate danger, protecting Resa, preserving independent proof, and preventing another authority from taking control compete for the same limited time and access. Clever play may preserve more than expected. If it does, honour it and let the factions react to that success.

At the Table

End State & Carry Forward

Record five facts. These matter more than a single declared victory. The lists below are examples; record another outcome if play establishes one.

Fate and custody of Resa

  • Crew protection
  • Valdegracian authority
  • Heller safe conduct
  • Church quarantine
  • Resa escapes
  • Missing, dead, or beyond custody

Control of proof

  • One complete archive
  • Fragmented among factions
  • Destroyed except testimony
  • Publicly copied
  • Hidden by the crew

Access to San Telmo

  • Crown cordon
  • Worker-controlled route
  • Heller technical custody
  • Church containment
  • No stable access

Public account

  • Industrial negligence
  • Foreign sabotage
  • Religious quarantine
  • Worker uprising
  • Truth remains contested

Convening authority

  • Crown Office
  • Heller command
  • Church inquiry
  • Joint mandate
  • No recognised authority

For convening authority, record who can call the conference, issue emergency orders, or speak for Canula Prime.

Revisit the Character Question. Did the character’s answer change?

Continuation into Shadows of the Compañeros

The San Telmo Incident is Adventure Zero. Carry forward Resa's fate, proof, access, public account, and convening authority. Do not force one canonical ending. The next adventure begins because San Telmo leaves the island exposed, divided, and valuable to every power in the Golden Sea.

Open the Adventure RecordContinue into Ash on the Ledger

Table safety

Content in the setting includes colonial rule and exploitation, forced labour and coercion, disappearance and imprisonment, religious and political pressure, and industrial injury and Source-related body horror.

A line removes content from the game. A veil allows it to exist only off-screen. Ask for both before play, revisit them without penalty, and treat changes as ordinary table maintenance. Use a pause or open-door tool.

The responsibility principle. Cruelty should create a decision, witness, responsibility, or consequence. If it exists only as atmosphere, remove it.

Adjust tone without breaking the setting: Swashbuckling (faster action, clearer villains, brighter victories), Political (leverage, public narrative, law, and divided loyalties), or Uncanny (signals, resonance, old systems, and controlled unease).

Running it in any system

Convert the pressure, not the identity. San Telmo is built around injured workers, contested authority, incomplete evidence, unstable equipment, faction agendas, and the cost of delay.

D&D Fifth Edition

Use DC 12 for routine pressure, 15 for serious uncertainty, and 18 for severe or specialist challenges. Treat the chamber as an environmental hazard and social conflict, not a hit-point monster. Use conditions or exhaustion for strain when appropriate.

Pathfinder First Edition

Use familiar skill checks, saving throws, conditions, firearms, siege, and vehicle rules where they already fit. Treat the chamber as a hazard or environment rather than a creature. Failed investigation checks change access, cost, attention, or position; they do not delete essential clues.

Pathfinder 2e Remastered

Use level-appropriate DCs and a simple or complex hazard for the chamber. Drained, Fatigued, Frightened, and Sickened can model strain, pressure, and disorientation. Preserve multiple investigation routes and degrees of success.

Forged in the Dark

Use position and effect. Clocks are native: Chamber Answers 6, Authority Seizes Site 4. Resisting a consequence reduces or redirects the cost; it does not erase the fictional change. Treat evidence and access as assets or claims.

Other systems: translate the threat to body, time, secrecy, authority, reputation, or stability. To play immediately, use the optional 2d6 Resolution Bridge in the Player Packet. See also the Native Rules and system conversions.

GM Only

GM Quick Reference

Before play

  • Choose lines and veils
  • Select four to six pregens
  • Choose the crew's mandate
  • Start Chamber Answers at 2/6
  • Start Authority Seizes Site at 1/4

During investigation

  • Put every essential clue in three places
  • Failure changes cost or control
  • Let factions act when ignored
  • Show warnings before harm
  • Ask what the crew is protecting

Final decision

  • What happened to Resa, and who has him if anyone?
  • Who has the proof?
  • Who controls access?
  • What does the public hear?
  • Which faction was denied and what does it do next?

Five-line session review

  • Which faction gained most?
  • Which faction was ignored, and what did it do off-screen?
  • Which clock became visible?
  • What clue or witness changed hands?
  • What choice will matter even if every roll succeeded?
GMEvidence interpretation
  • Luz is accurate but did not see who delivered the second calibration housing.
  • The foreman ordered the repeat pulse under pressure from the Crown Office.
  • The quarantine order was prepared by the Crown Office before the repeat test as a contingency. It proves officials anticipated serious risk; it does not mean the accident was planned.
  • The Church inquiry began when that contingency quarantine was sent for ecclesiastical review. Verena knew an emergency review might be required, but she was not briefed on the repeat experiment.
  • The Crown technical office wanted to learn whether the first response was specific to the Heller housing or reproducible with a second calibration standard. It therefore procured an Albion-pattern copy through the deniable Stroomdijk exemption route.
  • Wren's cell did not supply the housing or order the test. It learned an Albion-pattern copy was circulating and moved to recover readings and limit attribution.
  • The foreman ordered the doubled ledger and altered manifest to hide the night convoy and repeat-pulse equipment from ordinary estate records. The broken seal came from replacing the cargo record after delivery.
  • The erased patient name was a separate act: a clinic orderly removed it at Luz's request to keep an injured witness out of Crown custody.
  • The night convoy delivered the second housing, the missing regulator assembly, and the sixth Éterlumin cylinder. Its gas powered the second pulse; the empty cylinder remains below near the repeat-pulse equipment.
  • Resa's note establishes that the chamber answers a signal rather than generating one.
  • 'A reference it cannot reconcile' describes the conflict between the two calibration patterns.

Open the printable GM Quick Reference

Open the Adventure Tables for unprepared NPCs and regional encounters

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