Living ship

Living ship
The white catenary arches of the attic of Casa Batlló, by Antoni Gaudí, in Barcelona, ribbed like a skeleton · Michael Stallbaum, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

A ship that was grown, not built: a hull of hide and bone drifting between the stars, warm inside, and alive. Its corridors are ribbed tunnels that breathe, its doors open like mouths, and its rooms do the work of organs: a control room around a pool of nerves, a generator room that beats like a heart, a room where it keeps other creatures asleep in sacs, a sick bay that heals whatever lies in it. It does not know the party yet, and a body has ways of dealing with what it does not know.

Light
Dim
Going
Slow

Hear it

Hazards

  • A body that defends itself. The ship treats boarders the way a body treats an infection. Hurt it and doors clench shut, the walls weep a digestive fluid and the heat rises like a fever; leave it alone and it may only watch. D&D 5e (House rule): House rule: each time the party damages the ship, roll a d6. On a 1 or 2, every door of the section closes (DC 15 Strength (Athletics) check to force one open); on a 3, the walls weep fluid for 1 minute, and a creature that touches them or starts its turn in the fluid takes 2d6 Acid damage; on a 4 or higher, nothing happens yet.
  • Unbreathable air. There is air, but not air a human can live on: too thin, no oxygen, or the wrong gases. A mask and an oxygen supply are enough where the pressure holds; a full suit where it does not. D&D 5e: A creature holds its breath for 1 + its Constitution modifier minutes (at least 30 seconds), then gains 1 Exhaustion level at the end of each of its turns until it can breathe; it then loses all the Exhaustion it gained this way. Starfinder 2e: Thin atmosphere (GM Core): a few hours make a creature that is not acclimated fatigued; in severely thin air it attempts a Fortitude save every hour or becomes drained 1. With no oxygen at all, use holding breath and suffocating (Player Core). Armour environmental protections cover both. Archives of Nethys
  • Alien microbes. Life that never met a human: most of it cannot touch our chemistry at all, but nobody knows which of it can. Quarantine, filters and patience decide who goes home. D&D 5e (House rule): House rule: a creature that breathes the open air or eats unscanned food makes a DC 12 Constitution saving throw at the end of the day; on a failure it has the Poisoned condition for 1d4 days. A creature that succeeds three days in a row is safe from this world's microbes.
  • Decompression. A hull breach or a door opened at the wrong time: the air rushes out with everything loose in it, bulkheads slam shut and whoever is on the wrong side has seconds to find a mask. D&D 5e (House rule): House rule: each creature within 9 m (30 ft) of the breach makes a DC 13 Strength saving throw or is pulled 6 m (20 ft) toward it, taking 1d6 Bludgeoning damage for each 3 m (10 ft) if it hits a wall. A creature pulled through the breach is in vacuum. After 1 minute the section is airless. Starfinder 2e: Decompression (GM Core): a creature thrown from pressure into vacuum takes moderate bludgeoning damage (4d6 to 6d6) and starts suffocating at once, with no breath held. Archives of Nethys

What may happen

  1. The control room is a chamber of ridged flesh around a pool of warm fluid; lights under the skin answer every touch.
  2. The deck pulses underfoot, slow and regular, and the beat quickens after any loud noise.
  3. The generator room is a great heart of muscle and coiled organs, and the air crackles with its charge.
  4. In the creatures’ room, beasts float in sacs along the walls, each of a different kind, all asleep.
  5. The sick bay is a row of soft cradles; one closes gently around whatever lies in it, and wounds begin to knit.
  6. The corridors exhale: a warm, damp gust every few minutes, smelling of salt and iron.
  7. A round door of muscle stays clenched until something warm is pressed against it.
  8. An old wound in the hull has healed into pale, puckered tissue that still keeps the shape of the impact.
  9. A new corridor is growing here, soft as cartilage, and it narrows a little every hour.
  10. A hand pressed to the wall leaves a damp print that the wall slowly drinks in.
  11. A knot of nerves as thick as a tree trunk crosses a gallery; when anything touches it, the whole ship flinches.
  12. A membrane as thin as a soap bubble lets the stars through, smeared with colour.
  13. The ship’s builders sit fused to their seats, more ship than crew now.
  14. The temperature climbs a few degrees in an hour, and the walls flush red.
  15. A channel of greenish fluid runs along the floor; a dropped tool fizzes in it and is gone.
  16. A low song, more felt than heard, runs along the hull and fades.
  17. Small pale crawlers pick at the walls, cleaning; they turn toward the party’s boots.
  18. In the creatures’ room a sac splits with a wet sound, and something uncurls in the fluid.
  19. The veins in the walls all run toward one place, glowing brighter the closer they get.
  20. A human airlock hatch is set in the hull, grown around and half swallowed, with scratches on its inner face.
  21. Every light in the corridor flickers in a pattern, the same pattern three times, then holds steady.
  22. The ship changes course; the deck tilts, and something heavy rolls down a corridor toward the party.
  23. A sweet smell rises from the vents; the scanner reads the air as breathable and full of something it cannot name.
  24. One of the sick-bay cradles holds a stranger in a ragged suit, healed, asleep, breathing slowly.
  25. A shot leaves a burn on the wall, and within a minute every door in the section has closed.

Adventure hooks

  1. The ship is dying of an old wound, and the last of its crew wants someone to carry a cure to its heart.
  2. A salvage firm holds a claim on the hull and has a cutting crew waiting, but the ship heals the cuts overnight.
  3. The sick bay cured a smuggler of something no doctor could, and now he wants to go back aboard for more.
  4. The ship answers one passenger’s voice and no one else’s, and she swears she has never been aboard before.

Who and what is met

Each is an SRD stat block under another name, as game masters reskin them.

Other places among the stars

Orbital station, Derelict ship, Colony outpost, Precursor ruin, Asteroid field, Gas giant orbit, Deep space relay, Terraforming works, Prison hulk, Research lab, Crashed freighter, Nebula, Neon city, Junktown, Spaceport, War front, Alien hive, Undersea base, Lava foundry

This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 ("SRD 5.2.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at https://www.dndbeyond.com/srd. The SRD 5.2.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

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