Lair of the Space Lamb

What do you do if you want to run Arnold Kemp’s Lair of the Lamb, but you have a Mothership campaign planned for when the physical boxset arrives?

Perhaps the Lamb is somewhere new, somewhere beyond the stars.

(Note: A quick search of the Mothership Discord confirmed at least 2 people have already had this idea and run it successfully)

The Concept

Naturally, spoilers abound for the adventure (free via the link above).

This would still be a funnel, in an appropriately sci-fi environment. Items and traps would be converted based on what makes sense in the fiction, with a nod towards the mechanical drivers of play in this scenario (e.g. light being precious).

This is only a conversion of the first level of the dungeon. Eliminating the ghouls keeps things shorter (I have lots of other Mothership adventures I want to run!) and means I don’t have to try and rationalise their existence in a sci-fi setting.

I also wanted to incorporate some of Arnold’s proposed changes to the adventure from a recent AMA on the NSR Discord (will put up the link when it’s compiled). To whit:

• Remove the initial door and replace it with an elevator

• Give a hint about the drip-drip water puzzle

• Make the spiders non-venomous

• Give Akina more personality/goals

• Make the Lamb harder to kill

Then there were the Mothership (or at least, the way I run Mothership) considerations:

• The Lamb and its… produce are the only things here that defy rational explanation (I want to go elsewhere in the sector for other adventures rather than tie everything back to the temple and its artifacts).

• There should be lots of opportunity for panic and injury.

• Whilst money and treasure aren’t as important as in classic OSR gold-for-XP games, they’re still useful to trade with and as a lure.

The Set-up

The free city of Lon Barago, jewel of the plains, becomes:

Lon Barago

Size/Type: Asteroid settlement, B-Class Port (2d10 x 1kcr to convert 1d10 stress)

Equipment Availability: All mundane equipment, advanced weapons/tech are rarer — may require extra cost or time

Cultural Touchstones: The Belter settlements from The Expanse, WH40k Hive Cities

200,000 people (as per the last census, now out of date) crammed into a large asteroid (Barago, with “Lon” indicating its central significance). Barago itself is now mostly mined out, with satellite mining operations now taking place throughout the belt.

Hot, humid and cramped. The populace typically resents the corporations that jockey for control of the valuable top layer (with its docking bays, landing pads and taxation rights). No singular entity can claim to have majority control however.

Within this environment, religions and cults develop, feud and merge on a frequent basis.

And for our unlucky funnel fodder, the framing is:

Even if you are from Lon Barago/The Epsilon sector, you do not receive the protection of the citizens here. Perhaps you are an outcast of some kind, your family fell from favour or you are seen as a collaborator. Otherwise, you are an outsider — either in corporate employ/association or a rare independent traveller.

“What is the last thing you remember before you woke up here?”

I also created a d100 table to generate faction alignment, class and career. Players were free to use as much or as little of this as they wished. A sector map (based on the guidelines in the Warden’s Operation Manual) gave them some additional context.

I described the lair as a mine that has been repurposed for living (or at least, industry/storage) and shows signs of multiple decades of use. The occasional sign of bare asteroid rock but mostly concrete floors and walls. Occasional metal beams, pillars or panels but noting useful unless noting. The air is not completely stagnant, but any hint of where it is being pumped from is lost in the constant background hum that is omnipresent on Lon Barago.

The Lamb and other Creatures

The Lamb: C:65 4d10 DMG I:50 AP:0 W:3 (30)

Special: Damage reduction 3 vs. unpowered melee weapons

I used the ‘Brute’ statblock from the back cover of Unconfirmed Contact Reports, bumping up the instinct to reflect the Lamb’s intelligence and that the lair has been its home for some time. The damage reduction is to reflect the ‘as chain’ armour — it should be very hard to kill with purely improvised weapons.

“But the Lamb should kill you in one hit” — 4d10 could still potentially kill a low HP Teamster or Scientist in one hit, but most PCs will go down with two hits, after taking a cool wound (I really like the Mothership wound tables).

Everything else about it works pretty much as intended.

Little Lamb: C:45 2d10 DMG I:30 AP:3 W:2 (20)

Father Bastoval: C:60 I:60 AP:3 W:3 (15)

Inventory: Camera drone w/ night vision. Ceremonial trident (2d10 DMG). 2 x stimpack, Web grenade (produces a sticky burst that slows movement)

Milo/Bilosh: C:40 I:40 AP:5 W:2 (15)

Milio carries a SMG and Bilosh has a Stun Baton

Doors

“Locked wooden doors” become thin metal and plastic doors secured with a keypad lock. A strength check lets you kicked or otherwise break the lock and open the door in a negligible time, otherwise it takes 10 minutes to force it. Either way, it makes noise.

Access to tools to pry off the keypad and bypass the electronics with another power source will let you attempt to open the lock quietly (either Hacking or Mechanical Repair are applicable).

Steel doors cannot be kicked in, you need a blowtorch at the very least, preferably a plasma cutter.

Rooms 1-5

As per the Mothership rules, since all PCs are dehydrated they have disadvantage on all rolls.

1. The ‘bowls’ become metal-lined pits in the floor, original purpose unknown (a little like service pits for a large vehicle or access hatches for underground piping/cabling).

2. Instead of bells we have electronic ‘noise makers’ which will chime if moved too fast. Since overt harm to animals was one of this campaign’s lines, we have 3 goat carcasses strung from a ceiling beam. A metal bowl, hay and copious bloodstains suggest they were slaughtered in this room.

3. Unchanged

4. Purple lotus powder is unchanged.

The chest is now marked ‘secure magnetic containment pod’ — removing the first lock causes a warning beeping noise (think a videogame grenade/landmine), removing the second creates a bright flash of light and smell of ozone.

It contains the head of an experimental android (Unit-XC). It will attempt to absorb synthetic skin from any nearby androids (body save to avoid). If there are none available, with an hour of downtime it can reconstruct itself to move using the fragments of wires and structure protruding from its neck as tiny legs.

In this form, it can latch onto humans or androids (usually on their shoulder) and turn them into a thrall. Thralls are still playable characters, but their overriding focus is recovering the remaining parts of Unit-XC.

Removing Units-XC’s head without a full surgical suite risks 6d10 damage (reduced to 4d10 by a Success/2d10 on a Critical Success on an appropriate skill check).

5. Heavy steel elevator doors (no keypad). A battery powered lamp is hanging on the end of a metal pole, recharging via crude wiring. It lasts for 1 hour if removed and takes 1 hour to recharge. There are some pieces of wire on top of the locked metal storage box (to allow PCs to rig up charging elsewhere). Inside the box is another lamp and spare chemical battery. The chemicals in the battery are flammable, provided you open or break the battery to release them.

5a. The broom is now a mop with an aluminium handle.

Rooms 6-10

6. The acid deals 2d10 damage per round until rinsed or wiped off.

Note: I actually let this trap trigger repeatedly, in case the PCs wanted to lure something into it (of course, it doesn’t work on the Lamb, but they don’t know that). If for some reason they want to empty it of acid, it works 1d5 times.

Rather than a statue, there is a mural of a fish with hands, that has been defaced (rather than Vandoh, I’ve altered the canon such that the fish with hands was an earlier cult who occupied this space, see rooms 7 and 14 below).

7. The door cannot be closed from the inside. Room resembles a dentist’s office completely covered in grime and filth, complete with chair/throne in the centre.

Golden helmet worth 1.5kcr

3 x Elaborate ‘fish with arms’ religious vestments/costumes (bulky, flammable)

If a PC sits on the chair a rapid-acting nerve block is injected, and surgical arms descend from the ceiling. The left arm of the PC is replaced with a crude hydraulic claw below the elbow. Make a body save; on a success, it is fully functional (as boarding axe in combat, stronger than human hand). On a failure, it is damaged or otherwise not fully integrated (d10 damage, no strength benefit). The surgical unit only works once.

A recorded message intones “as the great fish evolved, so shall we”

The PCs can deduce the function of the chair, but only by spending 20 minutes clearing through all the grime and filth to reveal rotting paperwork, laminated signs etc.

8. Akina’s ring is non-magical but worth 2kcr.

Akina still very much wants to be rescued, but is not above siding with the priests if she believes they will kill the PCs. Has seen the life within the Lamb, and will appoint herself ‘Guardian of the Little Lambs’ in the event of a power vacuum.

9. Replace haunting with:

The concrete that projects out over the water is cracked and broken with rusting rebar visible in places. If 3 or more PCs stand at the edge at one time (such as if they are in desperate need of water) a section will collapse beneath one of them (50% chance that their clothing catches on the descending debris). The lamb travels here often and knows to enter/exit the water from the side.

For the water drip puzzle, I firstly changed the fountain to a malfunctioning pump, then placed another ‘acid pump’ next to it with a sparking (1-2-1-2) control panel. Plus another mural of a fish with arms.

10. Battered shield = discarded access panel with handles, AP3 if held in melee

Spear = sharp broken plastic rod, d10 DMG (adjacent), requires both hands to wield effectively

Torch = battery lamp (40mins light, not compatible with other lamps previously mentioned)

Bottle of liquid hole = cannister of hyper-cooled liquid nitrogen, weakens things it is sprayed on, but you’ll need additional force/cutting to fully break them. Damaging if swallowed, but the cannister may not break immediately.

Rooms 11-15

11. Unchanged (amusingly this makes the rat a very valuable piece of treasure if you can fully befriend it, given the cost of real pets in Mothership)

12. The roof is held up by a Legenga ™ Temporary Plastic Support Block Stack. Collapsing it on the Lamb inflicts 1 wound to it (don’t roll on the wound table — treat the ‘vulnerable whilst digging itself out’ as equivalent to this).

13. Unchanged.

14. Battery lamp hanging on the wall.

Inscription reads “Shadrakul, who showed us how life could change”

The sarcophagus does not open when you take anything from the pit below, it will need to be forced open or reset by filling it with debris.

14a. A desiccated corpse holds a glass prize for biochemistry (800cr), 3 x fear gas grenades and some cryptic notes that explain their purpose (requires 1 hours downtime to fully understand — also reveals the door code to room 7).

Fear Gas Grenades: Make a fear save or flee in terror for 1d10 rounds (still works on the Lamb, but rolling its instinct gives it a 50% chance of saving).

15. 1 spider bite causes muteness for 1d10 x 5 minutes. Each subsequent bite reduces your body save by 1d5 (death at 0 body save).

Danjo the reconstituted Weyes-Kroger Chicken substrate (now with Real Flavour) salesperson is calling out to the market on Level 8a. He has 1 knife, 3 x 20 minute batteries and assorted food packs.

Rooms 16-20

16. Unchanged

17. Unchanged (altars still have candles in the future!)

18. The shattered gazebo can now be accurately described as a fallen elevator.

18a. The portcullis becomes an old-timey concertina elevator door (diamond grid). The sword is a boarding axe and the bow + arrows are a SMG with two clips of ammo.

19. The east door no longer exists (Ghoul level eliminated) so the iron spikes are steel wedges holding the entry door closed (it can still be broken open).

+2 minimum stress if you are forcibly removed from a pool

The priests throw psychotropic urine at you in lieu of spells.

20. Vandress isn’t magical but she is mutated. Without cone of mutiliation/confusion she will spit acid (3d10 DMG, area effect) or cough spores on you (sanity save or act randomly).

Rooms 44-46

Note: Since there is no level 2, I didn’t make the tunnel from the fountain to the cistern quite as hidden or underwater — it’s just distant from the fountain platform (i.e. you can only see it if you fully explore the fountain with a light source).

44. A large water intake leads to a pump sending water up to the temple. If you manage to get the Lamb sucked into the pump you kill it and contaminate the temple’s water supply.

45. Rigid plastic boat with 2 batteries. 16 plastic water barrels.

46a/b. Unchanged. Rather than a tower, you can drop through a vent to freedom.

The Play Report

Stumbling around in the dark, the PCs were extremely lucky to have the Lamb attack the one PC with a knife, who then rolled exceptionally well to escape (and I rolled low enough that they barely avoided a wound). More exploration followed (not yet tackling the locked door to 4) and a spray of acid was likewise lucky not to take out a different PC.

Reaching the water (after seeing but choosing not to speak to Akina, who likewise was unsure of their intentions) they drank a little before the Lamb emerged from the water. Remarkably, everyone passed the resulting fear save as they saw it in the light for the first time.

Fleeing from the lamb, they hurl the gong into the pit in order to distract it, and continue their exploration. At this point, the lamp starts to flicker, and they elect to have two PCs start to search the bone pellet pile whilst the other two return to the elevator to recharge it. Feeling around in the dark, only one character is able to find the tunnel at the back and escape into it, whilst the other is grabbed and eaten by the returning Lamb. The two lamp-bearers (both marines) return to witness this and immediately panic, fleeing to the various mural rooms. Meanwhile, the scientist crawls through the tunnel and is relieved to find another lamp at the far end. We introduce a new PC (teamster) as the victim freed earlier.

Eventually, the group comes back together, correctly identifying that they have found a loop in the dungeon and a potential trap in the form of the weakened roof. Avoiding the spider-filled wall crack, further exploration reveals the weapons and rope on the ledge above the broken elevator (helped by some very good rolls for climbing). With these they feel emboldened enough to break down the NE door, finding the priests and interrogating Vandress before murdering her (and having some acid spat on them in the process).

Another encounter with the Lamb sees them wound it with sub-machine gun fire, but both sides retreat as the gun-toting marine is hurled against the wall, fracturing his skull (disadvantage on all rolls). Dragging him away, and now with the lamb licking its wounds, they break down the door in the SW and unpack Unit-XC. Unsure what the purpose (or indeed threat) of an android head is, they wire it to the lighting circuit by the elevator in the hope of getting information. Now with a decent collection of items, they head to the crack and smash a battery to burn out the spiders. Venturing inside and meeting Danjo, the scientist opts not to trade for items, instead saying “tell the priests of the white temple we’re already killed Vandress and we shall kill the Lamb if they do not let us out — they have one hour”. Returning to the elevator, they realise that Unit-XC’s head is gone.

Two PCs went to rescue Akina, whilst two others went to rescue more survivors. The latter discovered Unit-XC had drafted itself to a captured android back in the starting room, and it was requesting everyone else to serve it. With everyone reconvening by the main elevator, Unit-XC’s attempts to call it were interrupted by the Lamb, who tore the arm off one PC and consumed them as they attempted to slip past. At this point, Unit-XC commanding all the remaining survivors in the dungeon to search through the bone pellets in search of its body.

A plan was formed to kill/trap the Lamb using the collapsing ceiling nearby. Two PCs went to grab a priest from the pool to use as a lure whilst the others set the trap. After a brief distraction as one of the priest grabbers became overcome by the pink liquid (“goo is good”), the trap was sprung and the Lamb buried. At this point, the elevator doors opened and the priests emerged. Using the Liquid Nitrogen found in the bone pellets, a cloud of cover was created and the party charged in. Some good rolls later (especially from the boarding axe-wielding teamster) and they were in the elevator before Unit-XC could join them. On their way up; alarms, shouts and gunfire indicated that the temple had been stormed by an outside force… who were interested in offering the party a job to find other objects as useful as the Lamb…

Conclusions

Even with just the first level being played, I think you need two sessions for this. The nature of the module is to be particularly careful and plan your moves, even though it’s a funnel. Plus there’s ~20 rooms and a lot of (deliberate) looping and backtracking. The play report above took us about 6 hours in-game.

Two character deaths, with one of the other characters taking a serious wound, was pretty much what I was aiming for. It can easily be dialled up to have every source of damage result in death/wound and more funnelling as a result. I think the highest PC stress level was 16, which again feels about right.

Everyone enjoyed the dark, vomity horror, with players getting more into it as the dungeon progressed and there were more opportunities to plan. I would especially praise the level of interactivity Arnold put into most of the rooms here — there’s a bunch of different ways to play around with the rooms’ contents, with enough scattered ‘flavour’ rooms to make it still feel natural.

Mothership lends itself particularly well to limited equipment selection and improvisation, since aside from armour points and weapon damage every item is essentially just a piece of fictional positioning. Every combat took only two rounds to resolve, and the more freeform nature of it means it ends up being more ‘rulings over rules’ than many OSR systems you could run this with.

The Lamb is a classic Mothership monster since its tendency to stop and feed on victims is exactly the kind of hit and run encounter the system excels at (plus it can surprise PCs with its wall climbing and acid immunity).

All in all, a rousing success! I’ll be posting reviews of the other Mothership modules I’m running over the summer. First up, a visit to an unexpectedly resonant colony…

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