Player Primer | Shadows of the Compañeros

A spoiler-free introduction that the Game Master may share before Session Zero.

Canula Prime stands between prosperous trade routes, old colonial claims, and a deeper history that no government fully understands. The recent San Telmo Incident exposed evidence of a buried listening chamber beneath a plantation estate. Officials call the crisis contained. Foreign delegations have arrived to decide what the island, its people, and its discoveries are worth.

What the Campaign Is About

Political negotiation in which proof, access, witnesses, and public credibility matter more than a single social roll.

Investigation across courts, docks, archives, estates, ships, and hidden routes.

Covert action and difficult alliances with people whose methods may be useful, compromised, or both.

Aerial warfare where command, signal, rescue, and extraction matter as much as destroying an enemy ship.

A journey inland toward a Source whose behaviour is physical, responsive, and poorly understood.

Choices about custody, publication, secrecy, and responsibility that continue after the final confrontation.

What Your Character Knows

PUBLIC FACT	WHAT PEOPLE DISAGREE ABOUT
San Telmo suffered a serious incident involving Éterlumin infrastructure.	Whether the chamber was an accident, an ancient machine, or evidence of a larger inland system.
The DeSauros mission represents Heller within a Valdegracian political framework.	Whether Heller seeks stability, leverage, independence of action, or all three.
Albion, Stroomdijk, Luminore, Valdegracia, and local interests have arrived for negotiations.	Which delegations know about covert operations already underway.
Trade and legal authority are the summit’s official subjects.	Whether the real auction concerns custody of people, proof, and access to the Source.

San Telmo suffered a serious incident involving Éterlumin infrastructure.

WHAT PEOPLE DISAGREE ABOUT: Whether the chamber was an accident, an ancient machine, or evidence of a larger inland system.

The DeSauros mission represents Heller within a Valdegracian political framework.

WHAT PEOPLE DISAGREE ABOUT: Whether Heller seeks stability, leverage, independence of action, or all three.

Albion, Stroomdijk, Luminore, Valdegracia, and local interests have arrived for negotiations.

WHAT PEOPLE DISAGREE ABOUT: Which delegations know about covert operations already underway.

Trade and legal authority are the summit’s official subjects.

WHAT PEOPLE DISAGREE ABOUT: Whether the real auction concerns custody of people, proof, and access to the Source.

Choose a Campaign Role

ROLE	WHAT YOU BRING	A QUESTION TO ANSWER
Envoy or legal aide	Procedure, rhetoric, rank, and public access.	Which law do you still believe deserves obedience?
Naval officer or marine	Command, discipline, violence, and shipboard authority.	Whose order would you refuse in public?
Investigator or intelligence operative	Surveillance, documents, covert contacts, and inference.	Which earlier assignment still follows you?
Engineer, physician, or scholar	Technical knowledge, care, evidence, and specialist credibility.	What discovery would you refuse to weaponize?
Local guide, dockworker, or survivor	Routes, communities, memory, and practical legitimacy.	Who on Canula Prime expects you to protect them?
Free captain, smuggler, or privateer	Mobility, deniable access, criminal contacts, and flexible loyalty.	What debt can still alter your course?

Envoy or legal aide

WHAT YOU BRING: Procedure, rhetoric, rank, and public access.
A QUESTION TO ANSWER: Which law do you still believe deserves obedience?

Naval officer or marine

WHAT YOU BRING: Command, discipline, violence, and shipboard authority.
A QUESTION TO ANSWER: Whose order would you refuse in public?

Investigator or intelligence operative

WHAT YOU BRING: Surveillance, documents, covert contacts, and inference.
A QUESTION TO ANSWER: Which earlier assignment still follows you?

Engineer, physician, or scholar

WHAT YOU BRING: Technical knowledge, care, evidence, and specialist credibility.
A QUESTION TO ANSWER: What discovery would you refuse to weaponize?

Local guide, dockworker, or survivor

WHAT YOU BRING: Routes, communities, memory, and practical legitimacy.
A QUESTION TO ANSWER: Who on Canula Prime expects you to protect them?

Free captain, smuggler, or privateer

WHAT YOU BRING: Mobility, deniable access, criminal contacts, and flexible loyalty.
A QUESTION TO ANSWER: What debt can still alter your course?

Session Zero Connections

Choose one person in the DeSauros mission who trusts you and one who doubts your judgment.

Choose one faction that has helped you before and state the price it may eventually demand.

Choose one witness, prisoner, crew member, or family on Canula Prime whose safety matters to you.

Decide whether Melenko is a player character, a protected non-player character, or replaced by a designated Legacy Anchor.

Name one line your character will not cross even if the mission fails without it.

Name one truth your character is willing to conceal temporarily, and what would make concealment intolerable.

Table Safety

The campaign may include colonial violence, forced labour, trafficking, coercion, imprisonment, wartime atrocities, transformation, and Source-related body horror. Establish lines, veils, and a pause or rewind tool before play.

Your Character in Six Lines

PROMPT	YOUR ANSWER
Name and campaign role
Public duty to the mission
Private reason to remain on Canula Prime
Person you trust
Faction that already knows you
Line you will not cross
Question about San Telmo you need answered

Name and campaign role

YOUR ANSWER

Public duty to the mission

YOUR ANSWER

Private reason to remain on Canula Prime

YOUR ANSWER

Person you trust

YOUR ANSWER

Faction that already knows you

YOUR ANSWER

Line you will not cross

YOUR ANSWER

Question about San Telmo you need answered

YOUR ANSWER

Player Note

A strong campaign character has a reason to attend, a person to protect, a faction tie that can create pressure, and a boundary that makes success costly.