AppendixGM Only
Running the Campaign at the Table
The fastest way to run Mar de Oro is to know who moves next.
This appendix turns the setting into a table tool. Use it when you have ten minutes before play, when the crew leaves your preparation behind, or when a political scene needs consequences sharper than another fight.
GM principle
Every session should change one of three things: who controls information, who controls access, or who controls the source. If none of those changes, advance a faction clock.
The one-page Run Tonight sheet
| Field | Write one clear answer before play |
|---|---|
| Visible problem | What job, summons, disaster, rumor, or obligation brings the characters into motion? |
| Hidden pressure | Which faction wants the scene to go wrong, and why does it need deniability? |
| Deeper danger | What source chamber, Éterlumin supply, legal secret, religious classification, or buried history sits beneath the visible problem? |
| First reveal | What can the players learn in the first thirty minutes that changes the shape of the mission? |
| First choice | Which meaningful choice appears before combat becomes the easy answer? |
| If ignored | What happens if the characters leave, delay, or follow the safest official instruction? |
| Clock to review | Which credible off-screen action meets an established faction-clock trigger? Hold progress if none does; session end alone requires no tick. |
Session prep that survives player freedom
Prepare pressure, not plot. A good Mar de Oro session can move through diplomacy, harbor work, ship action, faith, crime, and source-chamber dread without feeling random because every scene answers the same question: who gains control if the crew does nothing?
| Step | What to prepare | At the table |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Name the weather | Heat, rain, fog, wind, or dead calm. | Weather changes firearms, signals, travel, morale, and witness reliability. |
| 2. Name the public authority | Governor, harbor master, priest, captain, judge, factor, or military officer. | Let the players know who can punish them openly. |
| 3. Name the quiet authority | Spy cell, company house, guild, smuggler crew, family network, or Church office. | Let the players discover who can punish them privately. |
| 4. Name the useful witness | Worker, clerk, sailor, cook, novice, pilot, guard, child, or prisoner. | Protecting the witness should cost something. |
| 5. Name the wrong move | Violence, delay, public accusation, opening a valve, trusting the document, or ignoring the poor. | Make the consequence visible before it lands. |
End-of-session faction turn
| Question | Result |
|---|---|
| Which faction gained the most from what the players did? | Advance that faction one clock segment and give it a visible new advantage. |
| Which faction was hurt most? | Give it a desperate move, a public accusation, a quiet retaliation, or a bad alliance. |
| What useful truth did the players leave unattended? | Move that truth into another person's hands. |
| Who now knows the characters matter? | Add a watcher, invitation, warrant, debt, favor, or threat. |
Canula Prime relationship web
| Node | Wants | Fears | First move when pressured |
|---|---|---|---|
| Emilio Resa | Time, access to the chamber, and proof that he was right. | Being made the only culprit for a system others funded. | Offers technical truth in exchange for protection. |
| Governor of Canula | Order, revenue, and a clean report to the crown. | A scandal that proves the port is not under control. | Frames the crisis as local negligence. |
| Valdegracian crown agents | Containment, jurisdiction, and ownership of evidence. | Albion or Heller learning what the chamber can do. | Seize documents under emergency authority. |
| Albion Bureau cell | Leverage, blackmail, and technical fragments. | Open war before the advantage is secured. | Approaches a crew member through a false ally. |
| Solarian Church offices | Classification authority and moral control of the narrative. | A source event that cannot be explained theologically. | Orders quarantine, inquiry, and silence. |
| Heller representatives | Truth, survival, and advantage without becoming Valdegracia's scapegoat. | A public rupture that makes all autonomy suspect. | Protects witnesses and steals proof quietly. |
| Workers and local families | Safety, wages owed, missing kin found, and no more experiments. | Being erased from the official story. | Bring testimony, sabotage equipment, or riot. |
Law, arrests, trials, and official pressure
Mar de Oro consequences should often arrive as paper, seals, witnesses, blocked docks, and polite threats. Use the law when combat would make the world smaller.
| Stage | Pressure | What it looks like | How to answer it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Rumor | Names circulate in taverns, chapel yards, and factor houses. | Ask who is spreading it and who profits. |
| 1 | Customs inspection | Cargo delayed, papers checked, powder counted, crew questioned. | Bribe, argue law, distract, forge, or accept delay. |
| 2 | Official warning | A clerk delivers a sealed notice and pretends it is routine. | Comply openly while investigating privately. |
| 3 | Witness removal | A useful person is reassigned, arrested, bribed, or killed. | Protect the next witness before asking questions. |
| 4 | Warrant | The crew is accused of theft, heresy, smuggling, riot, murder, or sabotage. | Find jurisdictional conflict and make powers compete. |
| 5 | Ship seizure | The harbor master blocks departure or impounds supplies. | Negotiate bond, break blockade, or force a public hearing. |
| 6 | Church inquiry | The event becomes a matter of doctrine, corruption, or contamination. | Answer with testimony, ritual standing, or political cover. |
| 7 | Diplomatic incident | Flags move, captains take sides, and a private mistake becomes state policy. | Choose which faction pays the public cost. |
Legal rule
A lawful order can still be false, corrupt, or suicidal. Let players respect the law without needing to trust the person holding the seal.
Rewards beyond coin
Coin matters, but the strongest rewards in Mar de Oro are permission, reputation, leverage, and access. Give players things that change what they can attempt next.
| Reward | What it gives | How it is earned | Complication |
|---|---|---|---|
| Letter of passage | Move through a port, checkpoint, or patrol without delay. | Save an official, solve a problem quietly, or accept a favor. | The issuing authority can later deny it. |
| Safe harbor | A place to repair, hide witnesses, and rest. | Protect locals or help a factor house. | Enemies learn where the crew sleeps. |
| Faction favor | One serious intervention or introduction. | Advance a faction goal without public exposure. | The faction expects repayment at the worst time. |
| Crew loyalty | Morale, better labor, and fewer desertions. | Pay honestly, share risk, protect the wounded. | A loyal crew asks harder moral questions. |
| Éterlumin access | Gas, regulators, pressure gauges, or refit priority. | Secure a source, convoy, ledger, or technician. | Access creates surveillance and debt. |
| Legal immunity | Temporary protection from arrest or seizure. | Expose a larger crime or serve a higher authority. | It protects only against one jurisdiction. |
| Blackmail material | Power over an NPC or institution. | Find ledgers, letters, false seals, or hidden cargo. | Using it makes permanent enemies. |
| Specialist help | Engineer, pilot, surgeon, translator, priest, marine, or spy. | Earn trust, pay cost, or rescue the person. | Specialists have loyalties of their own. |
| Ship upgrade | Better signals, reinforced vents, faster repairs, hidden storage, or improved guns. | Spend treasure and obtain rare parts. | Every upgrade creates a maintenance problem. |
Reward rule
When a scene ends, pay out at least one of these: information, access, protection, loyalty, leverage, or a material resource. If the only reward is money, the setting is doing less work than it could.
Homeland, faith, and class pressure
Use formation as pressure, not as a cage. A character may reject their origin, but other people still read the accent, clothes, manners, name, profession, and companions.
| Formation | Table pressure |
|---|---|
| Valdegracian | Authority expects obedience, proper address, and respect for sealed procedure. A breach of decorum can be treated as evidence of guilt. |
| Albionite | Polite understatement hides intelligence work, naval pride, and a habit of keeping a second set of orders. |
| Hellerite | Competence matters more than pedigree. Promises are tested by action, and loyalty must hold under risk. |
| Stroomdijker | Contracts, credit, insurance, cargo ownership, and ledger evidence shape every negotiation. |
| Colonial Born | They know the port beneath the flags. They can cross social borders, but every side may doubt their loyalty. |
| Faith pressure | Use it when... |
|---|---|
| Solarian | A scene involves legitimacy, burial, rite, heresy, quarantine, corruption, or who may interpret an event. |
| Luminary Fellowship | A scene involves conscience, printed argument, reform, direct reading, dissent, or moral refusal. |
| Oraclean | A scene involves communal discernment, symbol, sacrament, silence, exile, or careful interpretation of signs. |
| Class pressure | Access and suspicion |
|---|---|
| Noble or officer | Doors open, but servants watch closely and rivals assume entitlement. |
| Merchant or factor | Money speaks, but every favor becomes an account. |
| Clerical or scholarly | Archives open, but doctrine and reputation follow every question. |
| Laboring, sailor, soldier, servant | Back rooms open, but official rooms close unless force, patronage, or proof changes the terms. |